Heartbreaking plight of an elderly mother raising four children with mental illness.
Her hair has turned gray, her knees are weak, her legs are weary, but Mrs. Nguyen Thi Huong has not had a single day of rest. She is racing against time, racing against her own breath, to protect the "seeds" that have long since stopped growing in her mind.
Pain that has lasted through the years.
The home of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Huong's family is a small house on the banks of the Lam River, in Giang Tien hamlet, Bich Hao commune. In that house, the elderly mother and her four middle-aged children are barely surviving. This year, Mrs. Huong is nearly 80 years old. And for more than half her life, she has lived with suffering and misfortune, along with four children who suffer from congenital mental illness.
According to Mrs. Huong's account, her husband was a veteran and war invalid from the war against the US. Due to the pressure of bombs, he had to use a type of sedative injection during treatment; doctors diagnosed that this drug was the cause of the mental disorders in most of their children. Of their eight children, only five remain, and four suffer from mental instability. Among them, two are severely ill, frequently losing consciousness and unable to control their behavior.
The burden of making a living
Having lost her husband long ago, Mrs. Huong single-handedly shoulders the responsibility of raising four disabled children. In her rural village, brick-making is the only suitable job for this elderly woman. Because she has to care for her children, she can't travel far or choose a lighter job. Every day, the elderly woman toils, stacking bricks and carrying heavy loads for hire to earn 50-70 thousand dong a day. That money must be divided among five mouths to feed and medicine for her four sick children.
Regularly, the elderly mother has been trying to maintain her work for nearly a decade. Every day after work, she brings back a bundle of firewood she gathered along the roadside to light a fire and prepare meals.
To provide food for her children, Mrs. Huong accepted the labor, scavenging for every last penny. This shows that the self-sacrifice of a mother surpasses the imagination of ordinary people. But for the past few months, the threat of starvation has begun to creep into this already unstable home.
One disaster after another.
Among Mrs. Huong's children, her eldest daughter, Nguyen Thi Lu, was the only one free from the illness. Having married and moved to a neighboring village, she still regularly visited her mother and siblings to help out. Tragically, however, her eldest daughter recently faced a heartbreaking tragedy while trying to make a living on the Lam River. According to Ms. Lu's account, one night while fishing, they encountered a storm in the strong currents, and their fishing boat sank, claiming her husband's life.
Tragedy struck Mrs. Huong's family, almost extinguishing all hope for a better life. Although she received special attention from the local Party committee, government, and Fatherland Front, this support was insufficient to revive her difficult circumstances. Aware of this, the elderly mother swallowed her tears, silently enduring alongside her mentally impaired children, with only one thought in mind: as long as there's life, there's hope...
The vacant, lifeless eyes of her four sick children, and the image of a poor, struggling elderly mother, are enough to show us that compassion for Ms. Nguyen Thi Huong's situation is needed more than ever.
All donations should be sent to: Mrs. Nguyen Thi Huong, Giang Tien Hamlet, Bich Hao Commune, Nghe An Province. The recipient of the donations is Mrs. Nguyen Thi Lu, Mrs. Huong's daughter.
Huong, account number: 3615205766159 - Nguyen Thi Lu, Vietnam Agricultural and Rural Development Bank.
Journalist Nguyen Ngoc Dung, phone number: 0913.064.060.
