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The "coffee ladies" daughter. There is so many special stories. The "coffee lady" is one. Respecting your time I will skip the entire "coffee ladies" story (If you want to hear more email or call me) Todays journal is written by Huong her oldest daughter and currently living at The Lighthouse, our college home for girls.
The journal is not an easy read... This is only part 1 please be sure to read part 2. This family has come a long way. Huong's dream is to join the GIBTK team as full time staff once she graduates.
Please enjoy Huong story;
"Each of us wish for a happy and peaceful life and unforgettable memories and success. However life is not always pink, sometimes things happen when you least expect it, so we have to face failures, difficulties and pain which we don't think we can overcome. In that case, what would you do? There are many options such as giving up, ignoring fate, choosing negative ways or thinking that death is the only way out. We must confront and overcome our problems. Some people who chose to give up even commit suicide. Others look at those choices saying that it is ignorance, because they don't understand how much horrible depression and pain others have experienced. However, I can understand the feeling, because I also had a painful and grim past.
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The "house" they lived in when we first met
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I am 23 years old and my childhood was so full of sufferings that I hated this life and resented everyone. My parents got married when they were very young and they were both unemployed. My childhood was full of tearful days. My mother, siblings and I cried a lot. It seems to me we were unhappy every day. My father is a very brutal and selfish man, often drinking and gambling. Most of the money that my mother earned was mostly used and taken by my father for his outings.
Every time my father came home I was scared. My mother was often beaten and it became a normal thing that had to happen every day. At that time I was very young and I could not stop crying. I just cried; cried out of fear, I was afraid of the blows, I was afraid to see his fierce faceand screaming. I dread the times when my mother took my hands to run away and got caught. I am scared to look at the three pots of soup on my mother's head and afraid of my father beating me. I'm very scared.
You may not be able to remember everything that happened when you were young, but for me those days are stuck in my memory. There was a time when I started first grade, when my younger sister was a 5-year-old, and we had another new baby of 19 months. I and my younger siblings lived with my grandparents because my parents had to go to Saigon to seek a job. My grandfather is a very good person, but because he is disabled and lives in his wife's house, he always listens to her.
At that age many children are carefree and playful, but I and my siblings were different. We had to wash our own clothes, blankets and clean the dishes ourselves. We didn't know whether it was clean or not, we just imitated what the adults did. Each day, my sister had to wash her hair with laundry soap or dishwashing liquid, and she had to wear the same set of clothes for two days. Perhaps my younger brother was too young to remember these things but it was a blessing because they will not be obsessed with the past and suffer.
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Huongs family in their new coffee shop / store
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However those things are nothing, no pain can be compared to what my mother had experienced. How painful I felt when I was 13 years old and my youngest brother was just 11 months old. It was painful seeing my father having another woman and neglecting my mother and his own children. My father talked to his mistress every night and in the daytime he went out with his mistress. My mother was paralyzed then after a stroke. My siblings were so young so I didn't know what to do. My mother could not walk and my youngest brother needed even more care from his mother.
We lived on the money of our neighbors that came to visit usand sometimes people brought vegetables. Sometimes when we had no money and spices, my siblings and I had to go to the bushes along the road to find wild plants that grew there to eat. Sometimes the neighbors gave me some jackfruit seeds, I saved them to cook for the whole family instead of rice, but my father mercilessly dumped it.
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In front of their home they established a coffee shop named after my wife
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We were really hungry and how happy I was to have something to eat, but my father threw it all out. He was so cruel he discarded even the last food of my mother and brother. My grandparent's house was nearby but no one cared. They gossiped and anyone who came to visit my mother was looked down upon by them. My father had a new wife so my mother and my siblings went back to my grandmother's hometown. After that, we were given a piece of land to build a cottage in the village to live in.
My mother was an energetic and courageous person. She rolled her wheelchair to sell lottery tickets every day. My mother's illness meant that she was supposed to be at home to rest because she has high blood pressure and could faint at any time, but my mother is stronger. I love my mother very much. Even if it is a rainy or sunny day, she tries to sell, and earned small amount of money to buy vegetables. Although eating vegetables, life is extremely miserable, but at least none of us is beaten. Every night, my mother always wished for a miracle.
Sincerely;
Huong
Be sure to read part 2 coming soon
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