On days when she wasn’t tending the ducks, Mom would go out to catch shrimp and fish. She was very good at catching shrimp and fish. When the water in the ditch was low, Mom would bite the handle of her basket. Her two hands would move back and forth to catch shrimp, crayfish, and anchovies… Even though Mom worked hard, running back and forth, doing all sorts of things in the world, it still wasn’t enough to feed my brothers and I, whose mouths were always wide open, waiting to be fed, like baby birds that hadn’t left the nest yet.
Mother's feet were always attached to the fields. When it was planting season, she would go, when it was harvesting season, she would never refuse anyone's call. When the planting and harvesting seasons were over, she would never refuse any hire, as long as she had money to buy rice for my siblings and I to eat.
One time, my mother went to weed for hire. My brothers and I were at home, and an aunt from far away came to visit and told me to go and call my mother back. The sun was blazing, so I went down to the beach where my mother was weeding for hire. There, I saw my mother exposing her back to the sun, bending down to pull out each blade of grass. I got really close, but my mother still hadn't seen me. Suddenly, I wanted to call out and run to hug my mother, but for some reason, I just stood there rooted to the spot, two streams of tears streaming down my face...
My grandfather had a plot of land, planted with water coconut trees along the river. They harvested once a year. Water coconut leaves were used to roof houses. Old water coconut leaves were cut down, torn and dried on the spot, then brought home to roof houses or to build walls. The villagers also called them... torn leaves! If you wanted to have leaves, you had to "pile" them into bundles, carry them home, use hom (the trunk of the water coconut tree), use bamboo strips (taken from the trunk of a young water coconut, also called "co co") to sew them into sheets of leaves. For that plot of leaves, my mother "poured" the leaves with one hand, she rowed the boat back, and then she sat there alone to sew them. In the end, you got a few hundred leaves, which you sold to buy clothes and books for my brother.
And so, the four seasons cycle. Mother's feet, attached to mud, alluvial soil, alum... Mother's feet traveled "thousands of miles" but in the end, they only stayed in poor places to raise my brothers and I to become people. Mother's feet were covered in alum, her heels cracked, her whole life never knowing the scent of nail polish. Mother's toes were yellow all year round, from the acidic and salty soil that she had walked on. Those toes, although ugly, were very precious to my brothers and me. Because all her life, mother always devoted herself to all hardships, so that my brothers and I could have the most complete love!
TRAN THANH NGHIA
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