The loss is inconsolable

Dear children and I,

Today is the 5th day that I set out on my mission, and from here I say goodbye to my wife and children. When the North and South are unified, then we will be reunited again...”.

Heroic Vietnamese Mother Tinh Thi Loc with her children and grandchildren.

That was the message in a letter that martyr Ma Van Lap, Cay Thi village, Hop Thanh commune (Son Duong) sent to his wife - Heroic Vietnamese Mother Tinh Thi Loc. North and South were unified, but the promise of family reunion was never fulfilled.

Ms. Ma Thi Ngan, the eldest daughter of Heroic Vietnamese Mother Tinh Thi Loc and martyr Ma Van Lap, recalled: “In 1968, following the general mobilization order, my father enlisted in the army and fought directly at the “fire line” of Quang Binh. During the journey from Tuyen Quang to Quang Binh, he wrote 4 letters to his wife and children on February 27, 1968, October 16, 1968, January 7, 1969, and the last letter was on March 3, 1969. Each letter was a message asking about their health, advising the children to focus on their studies, help their mother with housework, and telling their mother to sell pigs and dogs to buy rice because at that time she was pregnant with her youngest child and could not do heavy work...”. And in all those letters, the mood of a soldier going to war, surrounded by bullets, bombs, smoke and fire, was always “this goodbye, who knows if it will be goodbye forever...”.

The letters have been preserved by Heroic Vietnamese Mother Tinh Thi Loc for many years. They are also the last souvenirs and ties before her husband, father, and pillar of the family sacrificed on the battlefield in the South. But that pain is not all... In early 1983, Loc's son, Ma Van Doan, followed in his father's footsteps to defend the Fatherland. Doan had just finished his engagement ceremony when he joined the army. There were no letters sent back, and his brothers and sisters had not yet seen him in a soldier's uniform when 5 months later, the family received a death notice. Martyr Ma Van Doan sacrificed on August 22, 1983 in Thuong Phung, Meo Vac, Ha Giang in the heroic battle to protect the northern border.

Pain upon pain.

Each child leaves never to return.

99 years old, sometimes remembering, sometimes forgetting, but the memories of her two sons, eighteen and twenty years old, leaving to follow the call of the Fatherland have never faded in the story with mother Lam Thi Gia, village 4, Kim Phu commune (Tuyen Quang city).

Vietnamese Heroic Mother Lam Thi Gia looks at the portrait of martyr Lam Van Tuan.

“They said, Mom, stay home and take care of your health. I will come back to you when I leave.”

"Never come back. Once gone, gone forever."

“No letter. Only death notice. Hai is in the Laos battlefield, Tuan is in the Cambodia battlefield. They haven’t been found yet. They haven’t been found yet.”

Mother Gia spoke in short sentences. The flow of time, along with countless times of waiting for news, hoping and then being disappointed, seemed to have made Mother's emotions callous. But her children and grandchildren said that at night, in her dreams, Mother Gia still called out the names of her two sons. Then, on the days when she groped her way to the cemetery, Mother said that Hai and Tuan were calling. Just that alone was enough to understand the pain of waiting, the torment of a mother when she had not yet found the remains of her two sons who had remained on the battlefield.

Mother Gia had 5 children, 4 boys and 1 girl. Of Mother Gia's 3 sons who volunteered to join the army, only 1 returned. Le Thanh Hai, enlisted in May 1971, died in the Laos battlefield in March 1972. Lam Van Tuan, enlisted in July 1977, died in the Cambodia battlefield in March 1982. Their blood and bones were mixed with the motherland, allowing the country to blossom with independence and bear the fruit of freedom. When the war ended, there was no greater joy than the joy of reunion, but there was also no greater pain than the pain of the day of victory when the children did not return.

Turn pain into life

There is no pain more painful than losing a loved one, losing a child is like losing a part of your body. Mother Gia, Mother Loc and many other Vietnamese Heroic Mothers have experienced such pain. The pain is not only measured in years, but in a lifetime.

92 years old, with dim eyes and slow legs, but Mother Loc is always busy doing housework. Sometimes she is slicing bananas for the chickens, sometimes she is collecting firewood, boiling water, cleaning the house... Her children try to stop her, telling her to rest, but working regularly seems to have become a habit of the hard-working woman who sacrifices for her husband and children. For 56 years of worshiping her husband and raising her children, Mother Loc kept her promise to martyr Ma Van Lap, no matter how difficult it was, she would send her children to school and raise them to be good people. However, the pain of waiting still appears in her dry eyes...

“After Doan brought the grave here, she didn’t mention it anymore. But when she regained consciousness, she told her children to go find their father and bring him home. When she was still healthy, she often went to the commune to do paperwork and hear news about him. But the battlefield was so big, who knew where to find him?” - Ma Thi Ngan, Loc’s daughter, confided.

The fire of war has died down, in Gia's mother's memory there is only the image of two hard-working sons, filial to their mother, not wanting her to do anything. Gia's whole life she worked hard day and night, all year round in the fields, working as a hired hand with the hope of living to wait for the day her children returned.

During the long years of fighting against French colonialism, American imperialism and in the war to protect the northern border, millions of Vietnamese mothers shared the pain of losing their husbands and children. In Tuyen Quang, Mother Luong Thi Hong, Mother Nguyen Thi Lien in Cong Da (Yen Son), Mother Pham Thi Duom in Hung Duc (Ham Yen), Mother Nguyen Thi Nhon, Lam Thi Gia in Tuyen Quang city, Mother Tinh Thi Loc in Hop Thanh (Son Duong)... became shining examples of great sacrifice and loyalty for future generations. The Fatherland honored these mothers with the title "Heroic Vietnamese Mothers". These mothers are legends in everyday life, the rear, the heart of the nation.

The province has 196 Vietnamese Heroic Mothers who have been awarded and posthumously awarded noble titles by the State, and currently 4 Mothers are still alive. All Vietnamese Heroic Mothers in the province are cared for by agencies, units and enterprises. In addition to monthly financial support, mothers are also regularly visited, examined, supported with medicine and necessary necessities to take care of their health and serve their daily life. This is both a responsibility and a sacred duty to enhance the tradition of "When drinking water, remember its source" of the nation, contributing to the effective implementation of the movement "Repaying gratitude" in the province.

In the historic month of April, sharing the joy of the Great Spring Victory, we recall history to see that today's peace, independence and freedom were exchanged for the blood and tears of our ancestors. Only those who have experienced loss can understand how precious freedom is. And the Vietnamese Heroic Mothers are the ones who sacrificed more than anyone else to preserve that sacred thing.

Source: https://baotuyenquang.com.vn/tron-tinh-nuoc-non-210959.html