My older sister's gift

I remember that every time the school year ended, everyone else would carry home a hefty prize, except me. It was incredibly embarrassing, but I still couldn't shake off my laziness.

It's easy to understand why I was always scolded by my parents and siblings. My father came from a farming background and didn't have much formal education, but he highly valued literacy. He toiled his whole life in the fields with only one desire: to raise his children to be well-educated and successful. For him, his children's academic success was the pride of the family. Therefore, a poor student like me made him incredibly sad.

As a teenager, my thoughts and perceptions were immature, yet I was easily moved and felt hurt. At those times, I felt life was hateful, and my family was so unfair. No one seemed to understand how hard my studies were. This feeling of "hating life" made me increasingly stressed and depressed. Sometimes, I felt like I was falling into hell.

When I was in fifth grade, my older sister came home from afar. She was my foster sister; she lived with our family when she was little, but now she was married and living separately. She was a good student, kind and well-behaved, and a teacher, so my parents held her in high regard. She inquired about everyone's situation one by one, and when she got to me, the youngest, my parents, who had been happy, suddenly looked worried. My older sister silently listened as everyone "complained" about me, her face extremely pensive. "Okay, everyone, please calm down, let me try to talk to my brother," she replied.

Throughout my visit home, my sister found excuses to take me out almost every day. Without mentioning my "misdeeds," she gently confided in me, encouraging me to express all my feelings and grievances. After a month living with her, my sadness seemed to lessen. Before we parted, seeing my gloomy face, she smiled, slipped me a small book, and said, "I have a gift for you. Listen to me, read it carefully. I guarantee you'll stop being sad after reading it."

That's the story "Overcoming the Long Night" by writer Minh Quân. The story is about Tâm, a poor boy who has to help his mother collect garbage every night. Seeing other children happily going to school, he secretly harbors a burning desire: to go to school! That desire is so strong that Tâm once told himself: "If I could go to school (...) I'd go even if it was raining!" Like me, Tâm resented his father and mother, but unlike me, Tâm resented them because... he couldn't go to school. He didn't understand that his parents weren't at fault. The fault lay with fate, adversity, and the perpetual disadvantage of those burdened by the "crime" of poverty. Only when he permanently lost his father did Tâm realize that no one loved him more than his parents. This awakening of love, combined with a thirst for knowledge, gave Tâm the willpower, strength, and determination to overcome the dark "long night" of his life.

Closing the book, for the first time in my life I wasn't scolded, but I still cried. I cried for my own foolishness in resenting my parents. I wondered, even my strict father wasn't as drunkard or as guilty of wrongdoing as Tâm's father. My mother certainly wasn't as ill-tempered as Tâm's mother. My family wasn't so poor that I had to go out with my mother to collect garbage at night to make a living. The boy Tâm's yearning to go to school made me feel ashamed, thinking about how I feared school like... leprosy. While Tâm declared he'd go to school even in a flood, I would shrink back and make excuses to avoid it. Clearly, I had everything that the unfortunate boy Tâm longed for during those long nights, but I didn't appreciate it. Realizing these things wasn't easy for a naive child like me at the time. However, thanks to the book my older sister gave me, I realized how to live differently and strive for a better future through diligent study.

Source: https://baogialai.com.vn/mon-qua-cua-chi-hai-post318161.html