The foreign side is happiness

Ever since I was a child, I have lived in the loving arms of my grandparents. My grandparents' house was about five kilometers away from mine. My father worked far away and only came home once a year. My mother taught school, took care of my younger siblings, and did housework, so when I was a child, my mother often let me stay at my grandparents' house.

I was the eldest grandchild, my grandparents were still young, so the neighbors often joked that my grandparents raised a baby. At my maternal grandparents’ house, I rode in an oxcart pulling my grandparents everywhere: picking peanuts in the Chua field, harvesting rice in the Valley… I still remember that my presence made my grandparents happy all day, because I often talked, laughed, and asked questions about everything under the sun, and they never finished answering.

My maternal grandparents’ house, whether big or small, had mud walls. There was no electricity at that time, and oil lamps flickered every night, but I will never forget the simple meals with my grandparents. On hot summer evenings, my grandmother would take the tray out to the yard to eat, enjoying the cool afternoon breeze. I remember the green banana dish my grandmother stewed with crushed peanuts, adding some herbs picked from the garden and dipping it in a rich, sour sauce. Yet that meal will always be in my memory.

Every night, fireflies flickered all over the garden, sparkling like in a fairy tale. My grandfather caught a few and put them in a glass jar for me to play with. Seeing his granddaughter happily enjoying the light of the fireflies, he felt strangely happy. On moonlit summer nights, when areca flowers fell on the banana leaves, I followed my grandmother out to sit on the porch to enjoy the cool breeze. Lying with my head on my grandmother's knee, enjoying the wind from the palm-leaf fan that kept waving, listening to my grandmother tell old stories, I fell asleep without realizing it. One day, I lay next to my grandfather, listening to him read the Tale of Kieu. Although I was still young and didn't understand anything, just hearing the rhythm of the verses made me very happy, listening attentively. Later, when I grew older, I learned that he was a teacher, so he knew so much poetry.

The feeling of peace that I still cannot find again is the nights in the small house, dimly lit, the sound of his battery-powered radio playing folk songs. On Saturdays there was the program "Vigilance" and he always waited to listen to the program "Radio Stage". I still remember him sitting at the table drinking a bowl of green tea, taking a puff of tobacco and then half-closed his eyes and saying: "Try to study well, tomorrow you will do jobs like the ladies and gentlemen in the radio station". As soon as he finished speaking, the sound of the guitar was in my ears but my soul spread its wings following distant dreams as he wished.

Sometimes, when I was with him, he stroked my hair and said: “When you are in 7th grade, you can ride your bike to your grandparents’ house by yourself, without asking your mother to take you!”. And so very quickly, I was in 7th grade, and for the first time, my mother let me ride my bike to visit my grandparents. But that was also the time when my family discovered that he was seriously ill. I remember that in his last days, he still did not give up his hobby of listening to the radio and still read poetry to me every night.

Now, nearly twenty years since he passed away, I still have my grandmother who is over seventy years old. Although she is old, her mind is still sharp, especially the stories about him, she still tells clearly with so many emotions as if they were still fresh.

I grew up, went far away, and every time I came home to visit, I stuck with my grandmother: cooking rice, fetching water, picking vegetables for her, so that I could be with her again, warm and peaceful. I called that the happiness of life.

Vy Phong

Source: https://baodongnai.com.vn/van-hoa/202510/ben-ngoai-la-hanh-phuc-ded0f5c/