Moments of love

(DN) - Seeing my youngest daughter busily squeezing lemons and adding sugar, it seemed to be to her liking, she slowly poured the mixed water into a small, pretty glass jar with a tight lid. Then, she wrote something down on a yellow piece of paper and stuck it on the jar, a smile on her lips, every now and then she looked up, looking thoughtful about what she was thinking. Finally, she "secretly" hid the jar in her father's bag as she prepared to go to work. I caught all of her actions. It turned out that it was her love for her father, and I was filled with happiness.

My youngest child is 10 years old this year, although still young, he is quite emotional. He often shows his concern for his grandmother, mother or sister, sometimes just a small action like rubbing his grandmother's belly to ease his mother's pain, touching his sister's forehead to see if her fever has gone down or simply asking his father: "Are you tired after work, Dad? Tonight I will massage your head to help you feel less tired"...

And I discovered something interesting: Happiness comes to my family members through loving actions that originate from small, simple things. Sometimes, life out there has caught people up in the cycle of work, relationships and even dreams, making us mistakenly think that only big things can bring happiness. And then that cycle has made us live fast, live in a hurry and become hasty. So that we don't have time for each other, small gestures that originate from a heart full of love. There is no family meal with all members or simply a weekend morning when the whole family cleans the house, cooks a meal... And perhaps, we forget a very simple truth: Cherish the simple things, collect and accumulate them over the years, and they will certainly create great things.

My house becomes warm in the cold early winter days thanks to hot meals with all members. There, my two children chattered about school; and I told my three children stories about my homeroom class. Today, I visited the house of a Hmong student with difficult circumstances and tears welled up… Everything seemed so normal, but those were peaceful moments, where love became a magical source of nurturing happiness.

Suddenly, memories of my childhood days with my parents, older sister and younger brother came back to me, living peacefully and simply in a small, three-room tiled-roof house on the hillside. The Northwest land sowed the seeds of happiness for the 5 members of my family. There, with a thick cast iron pot covered with soot from time but containing a sky of love from my mother with meals sometimes mixed with a little cassava. Or one day that cast iron pot "favored" the family members with an extra layer of golden, crispy burnt pot, dipped in a little fish sauce or more luxuriously, a little fragrant fat from the plate of burnt meat that my mother made next to me. My father kept exclaiming about the sweetness of the bowl of mixed vegetable soup that my mother picked from the vegetable garden in front of the house. Just like that, the meal passed in laughter, in joy and happiness filled the eyes of my mother and father for their 3 growing children...

Time has passed, the children have grown up. And then, it is the seemingly small actions of my daughter that awaken peaceful, simple memories in me. Perhaps, those loving moments of my child are also the sweetest gift that I wish to receive. I understand that my happiness is the peace of my family. It is listening to my children's questions when I am tired, it is seeing my husband's loving gaze without needing to express it in words, it is the raincoat and warm towel that my husband has hung on the motorbike for me...

And I also understand, happiness is receiving love and sharing love, leaving me with a feeling of longing, missing the memories of an innocent, strangely pure childhood.

Pham Thi Yen

Source: https://baodongnai.com.vn/van-hoa/chao-nhe-yeu-thuong/202511/khoanh-khac-yeu-thuong-af7023c/