Dad's joy

My mother passed away when my father turned seventy. There were only two children in the family, my sister and her husband moved to the US to settle down, while I was living and working in the city. I could not bear to leave my father alone in his hometown, so after the 100-day memorial service for my mother, I brought my father to live with my family. It was a bit hasty to say that, but there was no other way, because this was my mother's wish when she was alive and also our wish to fulfill our filial piety when our parents were old. Although I knew that for my father, having to leave his relatives, the ancestral graves, and especially the beloved small house with a spacious garden, where he and my mother had spent more than half of their lives, was not an easy decision.

In the city, my house is quite spacious, the 3-storey house is located on a plot of land of more than 300 m2, very beautiful and modern, in front and on the left is a spacious garden isolated from the traffic road, this can be considered a small villa. Having such a property is the dream of many people who originally came from poor countryside like us.

Well, that is also a worthy reward for my wife and I's tireless efforts. The first day I came here, my father was very happy. He was happy for my wife and I to have such a solid foundation. At the same time, he also told my two children to study hard so that in the future they can become useful people and contribute to building our homeland and country, bringing honor to our family and clan.

Knowing that my father always loves nature and likes to have space to do his own thing, instead of growing vegetables and fruits like in the garden in the countryside, before my father came, I asked my close friends to help me buy many beautiful orchid varieties, creating a paradise garden in front of the house, more than a hundred pots with all kinds of varieties such as: dancing girl, white jade, cinnamon, butterfly orchid... Just like the saying goes"The king plays with orchids, the mandarin plays with lilies",The orchid garden not only helps my father relax more but also accidentally makes my house look much more luxurious.

However, orchids are not easy to grow. I only like to look at the flowers, but I can’t take care of them. Or to be more exact, I don’t have time to take care of them. As for my father, after many years in the battlefield, he got used to wild orchids that are easy to grow. The more precious the orchid, the harder it is to keep it alive, let alone expect it to bloom. So my father’s orchid garden turned yellow and slowly died over the years.

There were times when I saw my father sad, but I didn't know what else to do. My wife was a university lecturer, I was working at an agency in the city, my two children were studying at a boarding university and only came home during holidays and Tet, so my small family had very little time for my father. Many nights, working late into the night, I looked across the room and saw my father sitting pensively, it was rare that we had a chance to talk to each other. At times like that, he often said he missed my mother, his whole life he was in the army, she worked hard to raise two children, and now she left him. For my father, seeing my mother leave was like dying twice.

Time passed, not long after the first anniversary of my mother’s death, I heard people in the neighborhood gossiping about my father having a new “love affair”, a woman who was a scrap dealer in her sixties but still very active. She was from the countryside, unmarried and childless, and occasionally cycled through my neighborhood to collect scrap.

My house sometimes has some cans or a few beer cans, soft drink cans from my parties with friends at home. My father collects those things and stores them away, waiting for the aluminum and plastic lady to pass by and then brings them out to me. People even say that when there is nothing to bring out, my father stands in front of the house and talks to the aluminum and plastic lady for a long time. I don't know the truth, but that story makes me uncomfortable.

My mother had just passed away, I didn't want my father to have another woman, even if it was just in my mind. Moreover, my husband and I were both intellectuals, I was a high-ranking official, I didn't want my family to have such a bad reputation. By chance, one day I came home earlier than usual, saw my father standing in the yard, next to him was a bag of beer cans and plastic bottles, there was an unhappy incident at the office, at that moment I couldn't contain my discomfort and picked up the aluminum and plastic trash bag and threw it on the street and walked straight into the house. My father stood silently without saying anything, but since then I haven't heard people talk about my father like before. Many times I called my sister to confide in her, after listening she just smiled, it seemed like she sympathized with my father a lot.

Five years after my mother passed away, my father also returned to the earth. He was sick for only one week and then passed away peacefully. Before his death, he called me and told me that no one in this life could replace my mother and that he had no intention of taking care of that woman. Actually, he just needed someone to talk to. The short, simple, rustic stories of the countryside through that woman's words were the simple, small happiness that he wished for every day, nothing more.

My father advised me to live by thinking positively, life does not only revolve around money and fame, success and failure always go hand in hand. Therefore, we need to love, trust life and believe in ourselves, do that so that when facing difficulties and hardships, we still feel confident and happy. Because happiness is something we ourselves feel.