Mother is the place where happiness returns.

In the old days, when my parents first moved to the new economic zone in Dong Nai, they only had a few belongings and a belief in a different life. My mother, a woman from the North, stood amidst the desolate red soil, under the scorching sun and swirling dust, yet she still smiled. She recounted her belief that wherever there was land, there would be food.

And so my mother began to sow her seeds in this land.

During the dry season, red dust clung to my mother's hair and the hems of her trousers. Every time she returned from the market, she looked as if she had emerged from a thick red mist. In the rainy season, the road was as muddy as a swamp, and she had to push her cart, the mud clinging up to her knees. Sometimes she would slip and fall, her baskets spilling everywhere, but she would just brush them off and continue on her way. My mother was as accustomed to hardship as one is to breathing.

To raise us, my mother sold seasonal goods—melons, corn, peppers, peanuts, pumpkins... anything that could fetch a few pennies. Behind the house, the pigs and chickens were her savings. Each time she sold a litter, she breathed a sigh of relief, as if a burden had been lifted. My mother never kept anything for herself; she gave everything to her children.

As a child, I often woke up before dusk, listening to my mother lighting the fire to cook pig feed. The red flames cast her shadow on the wall, slender yet strong. The pigs squealed for food, the chickens scurried around her feet, and we lay under the blankets, listening to my mother's voice as if listening to the rhythm of life in the house. My mother's hands were sun-tanned and calloused from carrying goods and enduring the winds of the border region, but when they touched me, they were still as soft as a dew-kissed leaf.

I once asked, "Mom, are you tired?"

My mother just smiled and patted my head to comfort me.

I didn't fully understand it back then. Now, looking back, I realize that being loved by my mother is the greatest gift of my life.

On dry season afternoons, gusts of wind would blow, sending red earth swirling like a whirlwind. Mother would still sweep the yard, then cut vegetables for the chickens. Each of her movements was gentle yet firm, as if she were comforting the entire land. When the rainy season came, the rain poured down relentlessly, and Mother would come home late, her clothes soaked and her sandals muddy. I would run out to greet her, and she would smile, a smile still tinged with rainwater.

- Mom's home, don't worry.

A simple sentence, yet it warmed my heart for a long time.

Now, living far from home, walking along clean, dust-free roads and neatly arranged houses, I often find myself intensely missing the deep red color of the basalt soil, the sound of the rice threshing machine in the fields, and the smell of the smoke from my mother's cooking every afternoon. These seemingly ordinary things turn out to be the deepest part of my memory.

Every time I go back to my hometown, seeing my mother sitting on the porch, her light gray hair swaying in the breeze, my heart sinks. She tells stories about the garden, the neighbors, the newly hatched chicks—small stories, yet they bring such peace to my heart. Looking at her hands, now weaker, I understand even more that being able to sit beside her, to hear her call, is a great blessing.

Sometimes I wonder: If one day my mother is no longer here, where will I go? Who will open the door for me? Who will say, "Have you eaten yet?", Who will save some food for me like they did when I was a child?

That fleeting thought made me feel small, like a lost child wandering aimlessly in a marketplace. But then I breathed a sigh of relief; my mother was still here. There was still a home waiting for me. There was still someone who looked at me like a three-year-old, even though my hair had streaks of gray. Happiness, sometimes, is simply having a mother to return to.

Tonight, amidst the hustle and bustle of the city, I hear, as if from somewhere, the sound of my mother's sandals shuffling on the yard, her calling the pigs, her gathering straw, her weary sighs after a long day of selling goods. All of it blends into a gentle melody unique to my life.

Mother, no matter how far I go, my heart will always be tied to the red soil of our homeland, where you sowed your youth, your patience, and your love to raise me into the person I am today. As long as you are still sitting there waiting for me, I will still have a homeland to return to, a place to put my sorrows down, and a spring in my heart.

Mother is the one who gave birth to me. Mother is my home. She is the red basalt soil. She is the wind of the border forest. She is the simple happiness that I am fortunate enough to still have.

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