Putting my suitcase in front of the yard, where the cement pavement had peeled off and turned into a crater, I looked at the storm-ravaged house, tilted and scarred. The old and new cracks intertwined on the wall, just like the patterns on my parents’ hands. Veined and calloused. Strange and familiar emotions rushed in, blurring my eyes.

I looked around, my father's poinsettia pot was still peacefully next to the steps.

Since my father passed away, my house has had an indefinite emptiness. The porch where my father used to secretly sit and smoke has become deserted. The TV that my father used to watch the news next to the window no longer plays. The stone bench in the yard, where my father and I used to sit and sip coffee when we were free, is now covered with fine dust. Everywhere I look, I feel strangely sad.

Stormy day

Before the storm, my house was a symbol in the neighborhood because of its typical 1990s architecture, when the trend of cladding many small stones on the walls became popular. My father hung several orchid pots on the two stone-clad walls, each time they bloomed it looked like they were growing on dry gravel.

Dad also placed a set of stone tables and chairs under the porch. In the evening, Dad liked to turn on the fluorescent lights in the yard, sip hot coffee, and discuss all sorts of things. Dad's hearty smile seemed to light up the whole house.

I still remember the days when the sun was blazing hot, the two of us wearing conical hats, carrying plastic buckets to the pond in the field to scoop mud to plant lotus, getting dirty. Or every time we went for a walk somewhere, seeing a place with beautiful flowers, we would stop the car, buy and "beg" a few branches to plant.

Just by collecting a little bit of each place, before I knew it, the small corner of the yard had become a sea of ​​multi-colored flowers. Dad also went out to buy some more strings of flashing lights to hang on the front fence, where there was a cluster of white and pink bougainvillea.

Dad said every time I sit here drinking coffee, I feel like I'm in a cool garden cafe. Hearing that, I smiled.

It can be said that every branch of grass in the corner of the front yard grew from the careful savings of the father and son, over a dozen years. Yet the storm came...

The day of the storm

The storm came. The wind blew up the mango tree next to the well. Through the small crack in the door, my mother said that Uncle Thanh's corrugated iron roof had also been blown away by the whirlwind into the field, covering the waterlogged rice. The garden behind the house could not withstand the storm either. The moldy banana trees fell in half. The trellis my father had planted was in tatters. No one could predict the future, when they had been flourishing just a moment ago.

A feeling of indescribable sadness welled up. So I quickly rolled up my sleeves. Cleaned up the rubble. Built a fence, replanted the trees. Used ropes to tie up the banana trunks. Pulled a temporary trellis up to the star apple bushes behind the house. Sitting there wiping the sweat from my forehead, I suddenly remembered the storms of my childhood, when my father's hands protected us from the sky.

In that moment, I suddenly remembered the use of words in English. About the words "home" and "house". For me, this house is not just a place to live, but a nest, a place where countless memories of my father's life are anchored.

I will take care of the small flower bushes for my father, so that from the rocks, they will grow beautiful colors. And also to create a support, to help my mother peacefully go through the storms of life.

Everyone wants to have a home where the storm will stop at the door...

Protect your children in the 'cyber house'

We don't have to wait until a 15-year-old student is ridiculed on social media for writing a 21-page essay in 120 minutes and getting a high score for society to be shocked by the world of online violence.