The dream of a three-time orphan girl

Nine years ago, one morning, Ms. Pham Thi Chenh, Ha Tap village, Thuy Binh commune, Thai Thuy discovered that there was an orphan child in front of her house. abandoned. The woman who had been married for eight years without children asked the government for permission to take her baby girl home to raise and named her Hong Phuc, with the hope that her life would be blessed with many blessings. Not long after the child was picked up, Chenh divorced and took the child to live alone. The mother gives her love to the child she finds. But when Hong Phuc was three years old, knowing how to babble to call his mother, Chenh became seriously ill and died.

“When she died, we found a letter telling the family trying to raise baby Phuc, don’t let him go,” said Nguyen Thi Chech, 60, the sister of the ill-fated woman. During the funeral, a three-year-old child covered in white towels, causing many people to cry. Thinking of the letter left by her son, Chenh’s mother, then 84 years old, took her grandson to raise her in a dark brown tiled house.

One afternoon in the summer of 2018, while playing in Uncle Chech’s yard, Hong Phuc received news that his grandmother had passed away. His legs trembled, tears flowed. “At that time, I was sad because I lost my grandmother and was afraid that no one would take care of me,” Phuc recalled.

Uncle Chech packed Phuc’s things again and took the child home to raise. “My family is full of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the economy is not rich, but my husband was also orphaned at the age of two, so he loves her. Well, we have vegetables to eat vegetables, porridge to eat porridge,” the woman said.

At the age of 9, Phuc knew how to help sweep the yard and water the plants in the garden, but could not imagine what it would be like with a mother. A few days ago, Mrs. Chech checked Phuc’s notebook and saw that she was choking on her writing. “The teacher asked me to write an essay describing my father or mother. But I asked you to let me describe you,” she explained.

From the day she picked up her grandchild, she and her husband and children always patted and cared for Phuc because they knew he was disadvantaged. Buying a shirt for her grandson and granddaughter, Mrs. Chech never misses the part that she adopts. But she knew that, despite taking care of her, the void in the orphan’s heart could not be filled.

“Normally it plays very carefree. But when I see someone calling my father, calling my mother, it’s down, sitting out,” she said. When Mrs. Chech just picked up Phuc, the neighborhood kids used to tease her “you’re an abandoned thing”. Seeing her crying, Mrs. Chech told her: “If you say that, you say ‘I live with my uncle, why do you say abandoned'”. She went from house to house and told the children’s parents, “You guys come and threaten me, don’t hurt her”.

In the evening, he opened a book to teach Phuc to study. At night, the two of them hugged each other to sleep. But Covid broke out, school closed, she had to study online. Without a smartphone, Phuc took his schoolbag to his cousin’s house to study via TV with an Internet connection.

Her family has two young children who have to study, so they cannot share the phone with Phuc. Many days, the child came back and told his uncle, “I can still do my homework and listen to her lecture, but when she calls to speak, I can’t answer”. Thuong Phuc, Mrs. Chech promised: “Let me take care of money to buy phones for my children”. Fortunately, the epidemic is over, the child can go to school with books.

Mr. Pham Trung Thung, head of Ha Tap village, said that Phuc’s situation is unique in the village. Over the years, the village has always given priority to children when there is a wave of help and support from organizations or units.

The head of the village added that, in the past, Ms. Chech’s family life was not too difficult, but in the past two years, her husband has suffered many fatal illnesses. Currently, he is anemic to the brain. Cardiovascular congestion, had to buy oxygen tanks to breathe at home. Chech’s children have grown up, but life is not very good, so they cannot help their parents much.

This year, the program “The Sun of Hope“, formerly known as “Mr. Sun”, Hope Fund – newspaper VnExpress and Foreign Trade University launched a painting contest for disadvantaged children, which is expected to be exhibited in June. Pham Hong Phuc was one of the children who sent pictures to the organizers. Phuc’s painting is titled: “Wishing a happy birthday”. In the painting, a small family with parents, children and friends are smiling, standing around the birthday cake.

“My dream is to have a very happy birthday. There I have parents and friends,” Phuc explained to painting teacher Phan Thi Kim Thuy, president of the Fine Arts Club in Thai Binh. “When I heard my son talk about the meaning of the painting, I felt both pain and pity for him. A child is too young but the loss is experienced in a lifetime”, Ms. Kim Thuy said.

The teacher said that the world of children is lively and large. When she gave a drawing about a dream, some of you expressed your wish that the war would end with a painting of a pigeon, and some of you wanted to end the disaster of environmental pollution with an angry painting of nature. Phuc’s paintings are mostly the appearance of a family, which is obvious to his peers, but he does not have.

Pham Nga