A letter to Dad

Tuan's father was a naval soldier stationed in the Spratly Islands. Since his father left, the small house by the row of betel trees has become quieter. Every evening, his mother still turns on the old radio to listen to programs about the islands. Sometimes, when he hears the announcer mention the Spratly Islands, Tuan sits still, his eyes gazing out at the dark sky in the yard. His classmates are usually driven to school by their fathers, but Tuan is used to his mother's old bicycle. Many rainy days, his mother puts a raincoat on him and silently cycles through the wind. Tuan loves his mother, but he also misses his father terribly.

That weekend, his father unexpectedly got a few days off. From early morning, Tuan stood outside the gate, waiting anxiously. When the figure in the green military uniform appeared at the end of the road, he rushed to hug his father tightly.

Dad looks thinner in the photo hanging above the bed. He stroked Tuan's head.

My son has grown up!

He smiled brightly, but his nose stung with tears.

The days Dad was home flew by like the wind. In the evenings, Dad would tell stories about the sea and islands. There were nights when the waves were as high as walls, and times when the whole island lost power because of storms. Tuan listened attentively, imagining Dad standing out there in the vast expanse of sea and sky.

The night before his father returned to his unit, Tuan tossed and turned, unable to sleep. He looked at the blue backpack next to the table and quietly sat up.

From his desk drawer, Tuan took out a piece of paper folded into quarters. He bit his pen, thinking for a long time before carefully writing: "Dad, I miss you so much…"

The shaky handwriting was visible under the yellow light. Some letters were smudged, some sentences were misspelled and crossed out. Tuan wrote very slowly, as if afraid that if he wrote too quickly, his longing for his father would vanish. After finishing, he read it several times before carefully folding the letter. Outside, the night wind rustled through the bamboo grove. Tuan hugged the letter to his chest, feeling a strange warmth in his heart.

The next morning, Mom woke up early to cook rice for Dad to take to his unit. The small kitchen smelled of braised fish and the familiar scent of straw smoke. Dad packed his things into his backpack while giving Mom and Tuan all sorts of instructions. Tuan was quieter than usual. He just stared at the blue backpack on the chair, his heart pounding. The letter from last night was still in his pajama pocket.

As his father was getting ready to go to the car, a neighbor came over to call him. While everyone was talking in the yard, Tuan quietly ran over. He slightly opened his backpack and nervously slipped the letter into the small front compartment. Once finished, he quickly turned away as if he had just done something incredibly secretive.

As his father got into the car, Tuan ran after him and grabbed his hand.

Dad, please take care of your health!

Dad laughed:

- Yes, Dad remembers. You should study hard at home and listen to your mother.

The bus rolled slowly out of the village. Tuan watched it until only dust rose in the sunlight. That afternoon, he suddenly felt worried. Tuan wondered, "What if Dad doesn't read the letter?", "What if the letter gets lost?"

Throughout the lesson, Tuan was restless. At one point, while taking notes, he imagined his father opening his backpack in the middle of the ocean and suddenly finding his letter. That evening, Tuan asked his mother:

Mom, can we receive mail quickly on the island?

The mother looked at her son and smiled:

- It might take a long time to get there. But the people out there value letters very much, my child.

Tuan remained silent. He had never sent a letter before. Therefore, that first letter was like a secret gift. In the following days, Tuan studied harder. He wanted to receive a certificate of merit at the end of the year to show his father. But every night before going to sleep, he would remember the small letter lying somewhere far away in the sea.

A week later, a postman came to the house and gave my mother a letter from Truong Sa. The white envelope was slightly wrinkled at the corners, and on the envelope, my father's familiar handwriting was clearly visible, making Tuan's heart pound. As my mother opened the letter, a small piece of paper unexpectedly fell out.

That was Tuan's letter. At the bottom of the page, his father added in blue ink: "I read your letter on a very windy night at sea. Thank you, my son."

Suddenly, Tuan felt his eyes sting. Outside, the afternoon sun cast a golden glow on the banana leaves. For the first time, he understood that words of love, though clumsy, could still travel far.

From the day he received his father's reply, Tuan cherished the letter like a treasure. He flattened it in his notebook and occasionally opened it to read. One day, while studying, Tuan suddenly asked his mother:

- Mom, was it very dark on the island when Dad read my letter?

Mother stopped mending the shirt and gently replied:

Out there, many nights, all you hear is the sound of the waves and the lights of the watchmen.

Tuan sat quietly, lost in thought. In his mind, he pictured his father in his military uniform, standing in the sea breeze, holding his slightly crumpled letter under the yellow streetlights. From then on, Tuan began to enjoy writing letters. He told his father about school, about the flame tree in front of the schoolyard that had bloomed red, about the dog, Muc, who would lie outside the gate every night as if waiting for someone to return. In some letters, Tuan only wrote a few lines: "Dad, I got a perfect score today." But after writing it, he was still overjoyed for the rest of the day.

One day, the homeroom teacher asked the class to write an essay on the topic: "The person I love most." The students vied with each other to write about their mothers and grandmothers. Tuan, however, took a long time to write. He wrote about his father. He wrote about his sun-tanned hands, the smell of sea salt on his father's shirt, and the nights his father stayed awake guarding the island so that the mainland could remain peaceful.

Tuan's essay wasn't particularly eloquent, his handwriting still messy, but when the teacher read the last paragraph, the whole class fell silent. "I just wish Dad would come home soon so we could fly kites by the river again."

On the day the assignments were returned, the teacher patted Tuan on the head.

Your essay moved me deeply.

Tuan blushed and smiled shyly. That afternoon after school, he ran home quickly to show his mother the bright red "10" on his paper. His mother looked at him, then gently turned away to wipe her eyes.

As night fell, a sudden strong wind arose. The radio announced a tropical depression at sea. Tuan lay listening to the rain pattering on the tin roof, his heart burning with anxiety. "I wonder if it's raining heavily on Dad's island?" He couldn't sleep, and then Tuan quietly sat up, opened his small notebook, and wrote another letter. "Dad, if the sea is rough, remember to wear a warm coat…" The handwriting wasn't perfectly neat yet. But in each line was a small love that was growing stronger with each passing year.

Summer arrived, and the cicadas chirped loudly throughout the schoolyard. Tuan finished his fourth-grade year with a certificate of merit carefully wrapped in a plastic bag. What he longed for most was for his father to come home. One afternoon, while Tuan was watering the plants in the yard, he heard a familiar voice calling:

Tuan!

He spun around. His father was standing at the gate, backpack slung over his shoulder, his face tanned by the sun, but his smile was as gentle as ever.

Tuan shouted with joy and ran to hug his father tightly. His mother stood on the porch, watching the two of them with tears welling up in her eyes. That evening's dinner was more joyful than usual. Tuan talked incessantly about all sorts of things. He showed off his certificates of merit and the stack of letters he had written over the past few months. His father carefully read each letter. Some were very short. Some were full of spelling mistakes, and some even had smudged purple ink fingerprints, but his father folded them all carefully.

Late at night, when Tuan was fast asleep, his father sat at his son's small study desk. In the desk drawer, he found an old cardboard box. Inside were all the letters he had sent from Truong Sa. Some had faded with time. His father remained silent for a long time.

The next morning, Dad took Tuan to the riverbank to fly kites. The early summer breeze blew strongly. The green kite soared high in the clear sky. Dad gently asked:

Why do you like writing letters to your dad so much?

Tuan looked up:

- Because I'm afraid Dad will miss home.

Hearing this, the father laughed, but his eyes welled up with tears. He patted his son's head.

- Your letters are the most precious gift out there on the island.

Tuan smiled brightly. He suddenly realized that even though he was young, he could do something meaningful for others.

As evening fell, the golden sunlight streamed across the river. The kite still soared high in the wind. Tuan ran ahead, his laughter echoing along the embankment. Behind him, his father silently watched his son with eyes full of love. There were letters written in clumsy handwriting. But it was precisely these clumsy things that contained the most sincere feelings in the world.

Nguyen Van Nhat Thanh

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/van-hoa/202605/la-thu-gui-bo-7184f17/