My mother worked hard all her life.

Achieving the relatively stable economic situation we have today has been the result of a long and arduous struggle by my parents and my siblings.

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It seems like only yesterday, but the difficult, impoverished times my family and I went through are now more than a decade behind us. Achieving the relatively stable economic situation we have today has been the result of a long and arduous struggle by my parents and my siblings.

When I was a child, my family was very poor. Poverty was palpable, evident in the patched and tattered clothes my parents wore every day. My siblings and I didn't have the same decent clothes as the other children in the neighborhood when we went to school. Clothing was one thing, but food was another; with five mouths to feed, each meal consisted of only a few cans of rice mixed with potatoes and corn. On mornings going to school, while the neighborhood children usually ate fried rice with pickled vegetables, my siblings and I only had boiled potatoes saved from the night before.

The potato harvests followed one another, and the endless breakfasts of boiled potatoes continued as my siblings and I grew up. What made my parents happiest was that all their children received a good education, achieved success, and had bright futures ahead. The tireless efforts of my parents and siblings, along with a bit of luck, have lifted my family out of the poverty we experienced a few decades ago.

Every time I return to my small house in the suburbs, seeing the changes in life and the improved economic conditions of most families in my village, I feel a mix of joy and sadness. However, mixed in with that joy is a lingering sadness because of the image of my mother, a woman who spent her whole life toiling and struggling for her husband and children, and who is no longer here. She passed away several years ago due to a serious illness. Thinking of her, tears stream down my face, and from the depths of my heart, I silently call out: Mother!

Nguyen Thuy Uyen

Source: https://baolongan.vn/me-toi-vat-va-ca-doi-a194695.html