December left me with many memories of my beloved father, a wounded soldier, a heroic veteran.
On drizzly winter afternoons with cold winds, sitting alone with a cup of hot coffee, silently watching the rain pouring through the glass window, my heart flutters.
Reflections on the hectic life of the past year, the things done and undone, the results gained and lost, the people who have come and gone in life. People say December is the month of nostalgia and love, and that's why.
December left me with many memories of my beloved father - a wounded soldier, a heroic veteran.
The war could not take the life of the intelligent, brave, and battle-hardened special forces soldier on the fiery battlefield of Binh Tri Thien, but it took away a thumb from my father and left him with many jagged scars. Every cold winter or windy days, the shrapnel lodged in my father's head tormented him with excruciating pain.
Every time I took my father to the hospital, the doctor shook his head and said, "The shrapnel is in a very sensitive position. It can't be removed because it can cause unpredictable consequences." My father and I slowly returned home. Seeing my sad face, my father encouraged me: "We have to accept living with this, my son. In the past, bombs and bullets couldn't hit me, but now each tiny shrapnel is nothing." Seeing my father smile optimistically, my heart ached. I felt sorry for my father, who had spent his entire life in the military, going through life and death, and now that he was finally able to rest, he couldn't rest in peace, constantly tormented by pain.
I remember when my brothers and I were young, my father had to work hard day and night to provide his children with enough food, clothing, and to send them to school to learn and write like their peers. Pitying his children for losing their mother's warmth so early, my father lived a single-parent life, being both father and mother to raise us until adulthood. The promise of an officer to his wife before his death is as sacred as the oath of a soldier before going to battle, "To die for the Fatherland."
My father has been patient and persistent in steering the family boat through many difficulties and storms so that my siblings and I can study and become successful, so that my mother can smile in her grave. I remember someone once said that a soldier's promise weighs a thousand pounds, and it is indeed true.
Dad has been a sky full of immense love in the hearts of my brothers and sisters. But “birth-aging-sickness-death” is the cyclical law of life that no one can change.
And finally, after so much grief, we had to accept that our father had left us and gone to the white clouds to reunite with our mother. Every December, when the anniversary of the founding of the Vietnam People's Army comes, we are filled with longing for our father. We look up at the high blue sky above, thinking that our parents are watching us and smiling.
A December filled with memories is coming back…
NGUYEN HANG