Milk flower blooms in the midst of wind and rain

1. My room during my student days in the city was nestled between two long streets. Every autumn, opening the window would reveal a row of milk flowers leaning in the wind. At night, the scent of milk flowers seemed to linger in my hair, creep into my notebooks, and even into the young dreams of 17-year-old girls. My roommate loved milk flowers so much. Every time the flowers bloomed, she would walk on Ly Thuong Kiet Street, deeply inhale the fragrance, then return, open the window wide to let the scent of the flowers fill the small room. Sometimes she would even pick a branch, put it in her notebooks, and let the scent of the flowers permeate every stroke of her handwriting. Her first love was also associated with the seasons of milk flowers blooming white on the streets. But love at 17 was as fragile as a flower petal, blooming quickly and fading just as quickly.

After the ups and downs of life, you returned to the city in the season of blooming milk flowers. The rows of milk flowers still proudly stretched out in the cold wind of the beginning of the season, in the gray rain. Milk flowers still bloomed, still fell all over the path. Only my friend no longer had the carefree nature of the old days. You said, going through loss and failure, people understand: Happiness actually does not lie in the big things, but in the moment when you feel peace in the midst of life's ups and downs. It turns out, just in the midst of so much sadness, just finding a little bit of joy is enough to cling to and hold on to life, to live more fully. I used to think that optimism is the instinct of young people. But the older I get, the more I understand: Only those who have touched suffering know how to smile truly. When the body is weak, when the heart is heavy, if we still choose to look towards the light, that is optimism. In the midst of that gloom, I suddenly saw a milk flower tree blooming brightly in the rain.

Illustration photo - Source: Internet

2. The girl I know has been in the hospital for almost a month. The long days passed quietly between the familiar sounds of the hospital corridor and the fitful sleep. From the second floor window of the hospital, the morning seemed to be covered with a thin curtain of rain. Outside, the trees were soaked, their leaves bent to catch the water. Her body was exhausted, but in an unexpected moment, when she looked out the window, she caught sight of the milk flower blooming. A familiar scent, both far and near. The girl raised her phone, quickly took a picture of that moment, then smiled slightly.

Following the young girl's gaze, I looked out into the gray rain. My heart seemed to soften, and I felt the sadness and worry in my chest slowly melt away like drops of water flowing down the glass window. It turned out that in a place where people often only think of illness and pain, there is still something very alive, very gentle and enduring like that simple bunch of flowers. As the girl once told me in the hospital corridor, this life has so many things that make people sad but there are also countless things to be grateful for. There are times when it seems like all energy has been exhausted, but just by looking up at the window, seeing the white color of the milk flower still shimmering in the rain, my heart suddenly warms up a little. As long as I can still see beauty, still smell the scent of flowers in the wind, still feel the gentleness of a morning, it means I am still living a life deep enough, enough to be optimistic and happy to continue living.

3. During my days at the hospital, I often saw many patients standing in the corridors of their rooms, looking at the pure white milk flowers in the wind and rain. Each person has a different fate. Some give up on life. Some are optimistic, believing that one day, they will recover, because illness is just a test of their own willpower. But no matter who they are, they still want to hold on to life, to continue living. Even for those with terminal illnesses, that fragile thread can break at any time if they stop hoping.

My ward has a friend of the same age who has thyroid cancer. The first time I met her, I was always surprised by the way she talked about her illness: light-hearted and full of optimism. She said: 1 week after knowing she had cancer, she cried and blamed life for everything. Crying because of fate, because of love for her husband, love for her children. Crying because of blaming life for treating her like that? At 37 years old, she still has so many aspirations and plans ahead, the burden of a family on her shoulders and a past memory that needs to be lived on to cherish and respect. In just one week, she lost 5kg. But now, after crying and blaming, she has learned to accept and find ways to cope. At that time, strength is not noisy resilience, but the ability to smile in the weakest days.

That girl was transferred to a higher level. The group of patients who often met in the corridor to see the milk flowers had an old woman with liver cancer. She was quite a strange person, laughing and singing all day as if she did not have that terrible disease. Every time she stood watching the rain in the corner of the corridor, she would occasionally sing loudly. After singing today, she would think about what song she would have to sing tomorrow. On healthy days, she would wake up very early and go to the middle of the hospital corridor to exercise with a few other patients. She said: "I have had liver cancer for 3 years but I am still living healthily and happily. I am 73 years old, I have had enough joy and hardship, there is nothing to regret anymore." Saying that, but every time she ate a little more, she would sigh because she was afraid of getting fat. Perhaps, you must love life and love life very much to still have such very worldly and very feminine worries even when you are close to death!

It turns out that in the most tearful adversities, people still have countless reasons to smile, to continue to live optimistically, it's just whether they want to or not. And perhaps, optimism is like that: Not a bright smile in the sunny day, but a smoldering light in the heart, helping us not to get lost in the storms of life. And I believe, when people know how to cherish small things like that, then even in the most difficult days, faith can still bloom white like the milk flower out there.

Dieu Huong

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/van-hoa/202511/hoa-sua-no-giua-doi-gio-mua-9db1a67/