Thirty years have passed, yet Nguyen Ha (born 1988, Bich Hao commune, Nghe An province) still remembers meeting her stepmother, Pham Thi Thao (born 1962, Nghe An province), whom she has affectionally called "mother" for decades.

It was a summer day in 1996, three years after her birth mother died in an accident. She was 8 years old, and her youngest sister was two. She had an older sister and brother, both barely past 10.

Thao, who had previously been married but had no children of her own, went with Ha’s father to visit the family, bringing along a packet of candy. Seeing the four scruffy children and the small, simple house that lacked a woman’s touch and was far from tidy, she felt sorry for them.

“At that time, I didn’t think about anything else. I just felt sorry for the four children. How could a widower raising four children on his own possibly take care of everything properly?” Thao recalled.

Ha did not understand much about adult matters at the time. She simply liked the gentle, kind woman her father had brought home. Thao gave the children candy, tied their hair and tidied up the house as best she could.

When Thao was about to leave, Ha’s youngest sister clung to the hem of her dress and did not want her to go. Ha’s older sister shyly said, “Stay here with us, Mom.” 

“Mom was so moved that she cried and promised, ‘I’ll come back tomorrow.’ And she really did come back to become our mother.

“Looking back, I realize how courageous she was to marry a single father with four children from a previous marriage,” Ha said.

In 1997, Thao gave birth to a son. She and her husband worked tirelessly, farming, going into the forest to cut firewood and trading goods to support their five children.

In Ha’s memories, her stepmother was like a superhero, staying up late and getting up early every day, moving from farm work to household chores without rest.

During the dry season, she would go to the river to wash clothes and then carry water home for the children to use. When floods came, she would hurry around with the children to move their belongings to higher places and escape the rising water. No matter how difficult things became, she always made sure everything was taken care of.

From the day they had a mother, Ha’s family home changed completely. The house was still ramshackle, but everything was kept tidier and felt warmer and more welcoming. The meals were simple but always served hot.

“Our family was poor, and with five children going to school one after another, my parents worked extremely hard. Yet from the day we had Mom, none of us ever had to wear torn clothes.

“I remember that at the beginning of every school year, Mom would gather pomelos and bunches of bananas from the garden and sell them to buy books, school supplies and new clothes for us. When Tet came, no matter how difficult things were, she always bought new clothes for all the children,” Ha recalled.

Thanks to their parents’ efforts, all five siblings received a proper education, with three going on to junior college or university. Ha is now a pharmacist.

After completing their studies, the siblings gradually started their own families. Thao never distinguished between her stepchildren and biological child, taking meticulous care of all their weddings.

In 2014, when Ha gave birth to her first child, she was living in Phu Tho. Despite suffering from motion sickness, Thao traveled more than 400km to care for her daughter and stayed for a full month to look after her grandchild.

Ha had her second child in 2019, when her family had moved to Yen Bai, now part of Lao Cai province. Thao once again made the long journey to care for her daughter. Having her mother by her side during childbirth made Ha feel much more reassured.

Of Thao’s five children, four now live and work away from home, while one daughter married a man who lives nearby. Grateful for everything their mother did for them, Ha and her siblings regularly call to check on their parents or return home for family gatherings, making sure their parents have everything they need.

Thanh Minh