Letter to my dear mother!
Mom, this afternoon passing Truong Bon, burning incense for my aunts, I suddenly burst into tears. Thank God and Buddha a thousand times that I still have you, that you are alive and have returned.
One very rare occasion, my mother told me that long ago, when she was 19 years old, she was also a female squad leader in the hot Truong Bon area. Her team was ordered to dig, build and clear that road, and then when her unit moved to fight in Quang Binh and Quang Tri, the new unit there lost 13 soldiers! My mother briefly said: "That's how war is!". My mother also broke her leg in half when a bomb exploded, but luckily it was bandaged in time.
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Women of Vinh City in the festival Photo: Dang Dinh Nhat |
I was born after the war, the pain of war penetrated me in a different way but I can never understand the harshness that my mother and her comrades had to go through. She left at the age of 15, and when she returned, her hair was dry and falling out, her figure was dry and emaciated.
The country had been united, but mother had never been in love. Grandparents had never heard her talk about any guy, nor had she ever picked up a pen to write a love letter. She had a child in her old age, through an arranged marriage with her father who was at the front, the two of them did not know each other. Then, mother welcomed that happiness with her husband's indifference.
I was angry with my mother for a long time, because of the low selfishness of a daughter who wanted to have her mother all to herself. Not knowing that my mother, like many other young girls, had almost lost all the most beautiful and private things in her life.
Five years ago, my mother wanted to be granted a Youth Volunteer Medal, so my mother and I went to submit the application. My mother's comrades told me to add fifty thousand to "them". My mother stood outside waiting for me, I went in, I apologized to my mother for not paying the "extra" and until now my mother still hasn't received that medal. Fighting, fighting and fighting, my mother's life was the ideal, the light of a glorious past.
Yet, living in Peace, I sometimes quickly forget. When I was young, our family was poor and I felt guilty because my mother had to work hard to earn extra food and clothes for me. I only knew my own sufferings, my petty disappointments on the road of life.
I did not know that I was a happy person because I still had my father and mother, while many of my mother's comrades and friends had never returned. I avoided telling my mother about my failures, accepting them on my own, not knowing that I was still just a sapling bent by the wind.
Mom, I am so much happier than you, because I grew up in peace, loved, and lived. That happiness, when I passed by Lang Loi and saw the children and grandchildren of my aunts and uncles there, I felt it was complete. Mom, I apologize to you because for so long I have tried to grow up, to earn money, and then enjoy life. I was afraid to ride a bike or walk, forgetting that there was a time when my parents' generation did not think about money and happiness.
Now that we have a little bit of material things, Mom has lost her teeth, aches, tired legs, and blurred vision. I am a stubborn and unruly daughter, Mom still worries about me. I wish I could tell Mom that I love and care for her so much. I wish I could fall into Mom's arms as easily as I did in the past?!
Pearl
