When one of them falls ill, she feels almost ill too. When one of them relinquishes their claim on life, she feels part of her is also dead. She is the caretaker at the Thien Giao orphanage for disabled children in the northern city Hai Phong.
Part 1: A mother of 166 children
Part 2: Italian philanthropist gets Vietnam citizenship
Part 3: Savior of the mentally ill
Compassion for disabled children
Back in 1972 during the war, Tran Thi Thanh Huong was a young and good-looking soldier. Once on an off-duty trip back to the central province of Quang Tri, a seriously wounded comrade handed her two of her children and asked her to take care of them. Biting her lips to hold back tears, she promised as long as she lived they would live.
Unable to carry them in her hands, she put the kids in the baskets on two ends of a bamboo pole and shouldered them back to the military camp. The unusual sight of a young woman soldier bending under the weight of the baskets, using her back to shelter the children from the bombing, and even baring her milkless breasts to comfort them prompted both sympathetic and skeptical looks.
Some suspected if the children were hers or someone else’s.
After peace was restored, Huong received many more disabled children -- victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin or relatives of her comrades -- all who had been too much of a burden for their parents to handle.
It was hard enough to be a single mother. In her case, taking care of a dozen of mentally retarded, amputated, paralyzed, or diseased kids seemed insane. Not unexpectedly, she found herself the subject of nasty rumors from neighbors. They called her crazy and nutty. Worse, some even suspected the kids to be hers, the result of “the wicked and evil sins she committed in her previous life.”
Misery was further added to her life as the men who loved her all walked away, unwilling to share her love with such a big number of children. One of them was a soldier who said bluntly, “I understand your compassion for them. But you have to choose between me or those kids.” As she shook her head in tears, the man walked out of the door and out of her life.
Her youthful days quickly passed by unnoticed in the company of these poor children. In total she has adopted 166 children whom she considers her own. And they, in return, lovingly call her “mom.” She said she can hardly get through a day without hearing the sound of it.
Last winter, as the once young and pretty woman turned 61, some said she has destroyed her life by bearing the burden of others. But she knew enough about her life to reply to them: “If I could live another life, I would still sacrifice my life for my children.”
Caring for the children consumes every last bit of her strength and energy.
Hanh, though a big girl herself, still does not know how to go to the toilet by herself.
Tram, “an engineer” boy who likes to play around and watch TV, tries to break it apart to look for “the people inside.”
The fan she bought to give them a modest measure of comfort in their sleep ended up at the bottom of a pool where she had to dive into to retrieve it after Tram attempted to help his mom “clean the house” when she was out.
For the well-behaved Tuyen, he just likes punching his own face whenever the weather gets hot.
Another mentally retarded kid named Dat loved playing in the rain and would always try to sneak out of the house. Tears still found their way into her eyes when she recounted the story of the unlucky child whose body was found in a nearby pond after a storm.
Ms. Huong (standing) helps her children in Thien Giao Orphanage to take their daily meal (Photo: Tuoi Tre)
Flowers still bloom on hard rock
After years of moving around and taking up various jobs to feed the kids, Huong finally settled down in an arid plot of land near Do Son Cemetery 10 years ago.
She sold off her ring, golden necklace and other valuable assets to have enough rice for the children. To get a steady source of income, she grows cabbage in the garden and raises fish and pigs. God must have heard her prayer as the number of pigs keeps growing, giving her a fair income to care for the children.
She taught the children to grow vegetables and feed the pigs even though sometimes they secretly put the pigs’ food into their mouths.
As the children’s health improves thanks to the work they do, Huong is elated. But what gives her the utmost joy is teaching her kids the alphabet. Initially, she sent them to school but they were too much of a problem for the school to handle. So she decided to home-school them.
Recognizing the children’ special interest and eagerness in playing with cell phones, she discovered a unique method to teach them -- buying a load of cheap old cell phones and handed one to each of them, asking them to text messages to her and each other. Before long, some of them began to read and write simple sentences.
To help them practice physical exercises, Huong turned on music shows on TV to get them dance along with the music. She even invited a hip hop dance group to visit her orphanage to teach them dancing. And the children’s health improved markedly.
Mom will not die
The exacting work with the kids has taken its toll on her. Huong recently became ill and was diagnosed with lung cancer.
Once she suffered a high fever and managed to get to Do Son hospital before fainting. While lying motionless in bed, Huong heard her children crying and whimpering noisily in the hospital corridors. It turned out that some older children had guided the younger ones to visit their mom in the hospital.
Worried that a sudden death might leave her children uncared for, Huong has made arrangements for some of them to attend a vocational school or two-year college and instructed the older and more capable ones to care for others after she is gone.
She told her children, “Even if you fall facedown, you have to stand up and move on. Be grateful to and remember other people’ kindness but don’t rely on it.”
The doctor said she would be lucky to live a few more years. She smiled and assured him, “I will not die. I will continue to live on through my children.”
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