My Mother - Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper

My mother was widowed at a very young age. When I was two years old, my father died in a work accident. For many years afterward, although many men came to see her and wanted to marry her, my mother refused. She raised me alone.

My father passed away, and my mother became both my father and my mother. As a child, I was carefree and didn't understand my mother's hardships. I grew up innocently like the plants in our garden, unaware that every night, after the lights were out, countless tears streamed down my mother's face.

The hardships made my mother look thinner and older than her age, and she was plagued by many illnesses. I remember the days when it was just the two of us, our simple family meals consisting of a few small fish and vegetables from our garden. My mother always gave me the best food. Whether she went to a feast or traveled far, she would always bring something back for me, sometimes an egg, sometimes a packet of sticky rice. Regardless of what people said or gossiped about, all she cared about was that I had good food.

My memories are always tied to those days sitting on the porch waiting for my mother to come home from work, sometimes until noon, sometimes until evening. My mother worked in the fields for our family and also did odd jobs for others to earn money to raise me. Her feet were always covered in mud, and her face was so dirty it was never clean. Whenever she saw plastic bottles or scrap metal that people threw away, she would pick them up and sell them...

My classmates teased me, saying my mother always smelled awful. Hearing them tease me made me incredibly embarrassed, and I felt resentful towards my mother when I got home. She understood but never scolded me.

Illustration: HOANG DANG

I remember those stormy days, when the house lacked a man's presence, everything felt so empty. The rain poured down, soaking all our belongings and even our sleeping place. There were times my mother held me tightly, tears streaming down her face, comforting me and saying that tomorrow the sun would shine again.

It's true that tomorrow the sun will shine and the rain will stop, but seeing the devastation left behind by the storm is heartbreaking. My mother is once again diligently cleaning up the mud in the yard and the fallen trees in the garden. Those were the terrifying storm seasons that my mother and I endured in our small house.

When I finished 12th grade, I intended to quit school to help my mother, but she flatly refused. She knew that only through education could we escape poverty. My going to university was a joy, but it also added a heavy burden to her. My mother always lived for me, becoming increasingly thin and never having a day of peace.

Until I started working and sending some money home, my mother would save it, saying it was for when she was sick. She silently trudged along the bumpy roads, carrying on her shoulders love, worries, and responsibilities.

When I got married, my mother was getting older and her health was declining. I wanted to bring her to live with me in the city, but she absolutely refused. She was afraid that her daughter-in-law would be uncomfortable with the "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law" relationship. Moreover, her children were still renting and their finances weren't very good.

Every time I think of my mother, all alone at home, tears well up in my eyes. My mother sacrificed her whole life, carrying a heavy burden of worries. Even in her old age, she remains alone.

Life left me with few choices. Every time I visited, my mother's eyes were filled with joy as she greeted me. When I left, she watched me until her son's figure disappeared down the quiet village road.

I am who I am today thanks to my mother. I am proud to have the most wonderful mother in the world. To her, I am still her little child, needing her protection and understanding. When I return to her, my heart is always anchored by the poignant words of the poet Nguyen Duy: "We live our whole lives, yet we can never fully understand all the lullabies our mother sang."

Source: https://nld.com.vn/van-nghe/me-toi-20230513191704721.htm