My grandfather raised me since I was little, since I was weaned from breastfeeding, until when I was in 12th grade, he no longer had the strength to do the hard farm work that required patience, diligence and endurance. My grandfather exhausted himself for more than twenty years, only to be fatally struck down and forced to lie on a rickety bed.

On a hot summer evening, outside the full moon shone brightly across the deserted countryside, my grandfather whispered to me to sit on one side of the bed, holding my hand with his dry, bony hand that was trembling from time to time. He seemed to use all his remaining breath to clearly say each word to me:

“I probably won’t make it through this, my dear! You have to be very calm, promise me to obey, to do what I tell you, to do what I ask you to do!”

I was deeply moved, hugged his arm, and remained calmer than ever to promise each word firmly:

“I promise to obey you, follow your teachings no matter what the situation!”

Grandpa smiled, nodded several times to show his satisfaction, his voice hoarse but very earnest:

“No matter what the circumstances, you should not drop out of school halfway. Study until the end, studying will give you a solid position in society, it will help you escape the siege of ignorance, poverty and sin…”

“I promise. I will continue studying, by all means.”

“By all means? Except for the bad ways. Only by ways that lead to goodness, stay away from evil!”

“Yes… yes. I will continue to study by all legitimate and honest means.”

“Yes, I have to say that so that Grandma can feel at ease. Grandpa allows me to sell the fields, sell some of the garden, sell some of the land to get money for long-term study if I really feel the need to sell. But you absolutely must not sell this house, even if its value is not worth much, because I need to have a place to live at least in the first period after Grandma leaves…”

“I promise. I will never let this house belong to someone else!”

Hearing my firm promise, Grandpa shook his head:

“No. Grandma doesn’t want you to promise that. Because Grandma still has to anticipate that everything will change after you find your father…”

I was shocked. I gasped. I widened my eyes:

“Find your father?”

My grandfather nodded, squeezing my hand tighter:

“I want you to find your biological father after I go away. Only then will I feel at ease to go…”

I was silent, absent-minded and speechless. Actually, the fact that I still had a father was not a secret, a surprise. Since I was a child, I had heard rumors about it, but every time I asked my grandfather, he remained silent. When I was in 5th grade, he moved to another commune, where no one knew the origins of my grandfather and I. I simply knew that I was a child abandoned by both my father and mother when I was only one year old. I was the result of a forced love affair, a fateful encounter. My father had never met his own blood. My mother had left her firstborn child behind, packed up and left, for fear of public opinion. My grandfather had to take care of and raise his grandchild with the help of kind neighbors. I only heard those stories in fragments, vaguely, and incoherently, from the mouths of people living in the same village. My grandfather never gave me a detailed answer when I had questions. I never expected that at the moment of his death, he would make a request beyond my imagination. He slowly said:

“Now is the time for me to no longer hide anything from you. I want to go peacefully, I want you to be reunited with your biological father whom you have lost once in your life. Now that he is gone, you must find him again. I believe that your father, no matter how heartless, selfish, or cruel, would not have the heart to refuse, would not have the heart to turn his back on a child who has his own blood!”

I was really moved, restless and worried, and asked:

“You believe that? Why do you believe that?”

“I believe that because you are exactly like your father!”

And then, with a weak, hoarse voice, my grandfather dragged me back to the past full of unexpected details that no one had ever told me about...

At that time, my grandparents opened a casino right at home. It was a small casino. The house was near the local military post of the Republic of Vietnam, so the gamblers were usually soldiers, very few poor ordinary people came to sit on the mat. My grandparents lived comfortably thanks to the money they earned from the gambling, not having to go out to the fields, getting their skin burned by the sun, or their clothes soaked in the rain. My mother was then a young woman of twenty-three, and only stayed at home to help my parents prepare meals and provide for the gamblers. The late-night meals and drinking parties after the gambling of the soldiers with a gambling addiction brought some benefits to my grandparents. Then my grandparents also jumped into the gambling. Fire near straw cannot avoid catching fire. My grandparents started to lose all their money, burned their chests and cabinets, mortgaged their land and sold their fields, and their debts piled up even higher. The more they lost, the more their family line was ruined. My grandparents had many creditors, but the biggest one was the captain of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The captain, named Tu, was notorious for his ferocity, unlike his name, and was a valued guest of the casino from the very first days of its opening. He had a happy family in the village on the other side of the river, but when he saw the casino owners' only daughter, he was fascinated, flirting with her, making sweet and ambiguous comments... With enough authority to make everyone terrified, the captain demanded debt from the casino owners by seizing the virginity of a girl. My grandparents gritted their teeth and closed their eyes to hand over their daughter to the captain so that they could hold in their hands the paper promising to forgive their debt. After seizing the precious thing that many other officers and soldiers craved, the captain came more often to enjoy worldly pleasures with aggressive intimidation. The Captain also cleared some of my grandparents' small debts during that time... When my mother was pregnant, the Captain was indifferent and indifferent when he heard the news. Then, on the day of the military transfer, the Captain packed up and marched to the battlefield where smoke and fire were everywhere. He left and never returned to the small village with a small casino, where a young woman with a tearful face sat every day massaging her belly that was getting bigger and bigger... The Captain was my father. I was the baby in the belly of the young woman, the daughter of the small casino owner.

My mother gave birth to me with hatred and resentment. She saw me as a hateful debt, but still had to cherish and raise me, still had to caress and breastfeed me, even though her tears kept flowing. The family collapsed, the family atmosphere was tense and sad, my grandmother was sick and passed away before she could apologize to her daughter. My mother quietly left in the middle of the night, leaving me lying alone on the cold, empty bamboo bed, along with a letter full of complaints to my father who was suffering from a mental breakdown. My grandfather initially intended to send me to an orphanage, but he asked the neighbors to comfort me, share my feelings, and help me financially, so he decided to raise his grandchild with the hope of atonement for his sins.

My mother left without a trace until I was four years old, when I contacted my grandfather for only a brief moment. My grandfather only knew briefly that my mother had gone to the forest, followed the Revolution, and had become husband and wife with a gentle "Viet Cong". After the country was unified, my grandfather waited day and night with the hope that his only daughter would return to reunite, to receive the child he had given birth to and happily live with the scene of mother and daughter being reunited. But that daughter never appeared again, whether she was dead or alive was uncertain. The hope faded, turned out to be truly hopeless, my grandfather began to devote all his energy to taking care of his grandson's education. He considered me the only goal, the only decision of the rest of his life. But my grandfather did not follow the path he had laid out for his grandson to follow to the end. He wanted me to continue to the end even though he could no longer stand on the sidelines to be an enthusiastic and patient cheerleader...

"Come to your father!"

My grandfather repeated his request earnestly. I was silent, my mind was in turmoil, my heart was hot and cold, happy and sad. His voice gradually weakened after hours of trying to make his last words:

“You go to Ha Linh parish, ask Mr. Hai Tu, everyone knows. 3 years ago, I did some research and found out that your father was sent to a re-education camp in the North, and has returned to the locality to work in the garden, on the farm... I don't want you to be protected by a rich, well-off father. I just want you to be reunited with your father, have a warm family home, have a place to rely on when you are sick, even if you have to eat porridge and eat potatoes. Without love and affection, it will be difficult to stand firmly in this difficult life, my child!”

… A week later, my grandfather breathed his last, at that time I was still wandering around looking for news of my father. Right after finishing the funeral for my grandfather, I boldly went to the house that many people had pointed out when I asked. An ancient, mossy house, located in the middle of a lush green garden, with a light red brick yard and a long, high-class foundation, attracted me with a strong magnetic force. I stood there for a long time, taking a deep breath to find peace, then leisurely walked straight inside. The house was deserted. Not a sound could be heard from the front of the house to the back garden. I asked:

"Is anyone home?"

I asked three times before I heard rustling sounds, the sound of slippers, and a woman appeared. I politely bowed my head to greet her. She narrowed her eyes and looked at me from head to toe, then her eyes suddenly stopped and looked straight at my face without blinking.

"You... who are you asking?"

"Is this Mr. Hai Tu's house?"

"That's right. I'm his daughter."

"Really? You're... which sister?"

“First sister. I asked your father what happened?”

“Second sister… don’t you see anything special about me? I just looked at the family photo hanging on the wall… I know for sure I’ve found the right place, because I realized… realized that there seems to be a shadow of me, of myself in there!”

I pointed to the photo frame on the wall. Then I said immediately:

“I am your illegitimate child!”

I emphasized each word. The woman standing in front of me stared at me, looking at me in amazement. I smiled very friendly:

“Don’t you see that I look like my father? I don’t look like the brothers in that photo?”

She stammered, confused:

“Yes… yes. I look… exactly like him. At first glance… I thought he was An, I thought he was Long, your younger brother. Are you the child of Aunt Loan from Dai Lac village?”

“Huh?” I exclaimed in surprise, “So…?”

She walked over, grabbed my arm, and pulled me back to the chair, saying:

“Oh my god… that’s for sure. It’s really the old man’s child. I’ve always heard my father mention Aunt Loan, about an illegitimate child that he didn’t acknowledge… He only told me a little bit about it…”

I felt sorry for myself, tears welling up in my eyes. I began to tell my half-sister everything, telling her everything, telling her everything, until the last part, which was my grandfather’s last words. My second sister cried, I didn’t know if she was crying because she was happy to see her father’s illegitimate child, or because she pitied my wandering life and miserable fate?

“Now, I came here to ask to see my father, to see my siblings, according to my grandfather’s wishes…”

My second sister cried even harder, then choked:

“It’s too late… my dear!”

The sky had just collapsed on my head. I screamed:

“Why is it late?”

“My father went to America… He went under the HO program… since 1995, after being there for 6 years… because he missed his homeland, he craved fish sauce, he ate too much fish sauce, so he got high blood pressure, and then died of a stroke!”

The ground had just collapsed under where I was sitting. I had lost my father for the second time. I had never once hugged him. And had never once been called by his name.

Luckily, I still had two older brothers living in a faraway foreign land, and an older sister living near me with a happy family. It was my second sister who comforted me when I felt so lonely and miserable. She opened the door of the ancestral house that my grandfather left for my father, welcoming me back with great love. Her husband, an intellectual teacher, also warmly invited me to live under a moss-covered roof, and was the one who encouraged me most in my studies.

I passed the entrance exam to the teacher training university. Then I graduated, returned to my old village, where I was born and raised, and devoted all my efforts to fulfilling my promise to my grandfather, fulfilling the duty of a ferryman who carries naive and disadvantaged children across the river, and dreaming of a day when my homeland would be filled with laughter and the frolic of children. I dream that no child will have to suffer the same fate as me, but that every child will be blessed with both parents to study and grow up... I will row tirelessly, thanks to the advice my brother-in-law, my closest and best senior teacher, poured into my ears when he knew I was grieving over losing my father twice:

"Don't kneel down and surrender because you lost your father twice. Even if you still have two fathers, if your legs are weak and cowardly, you will still stay in the same place, or step back!"