Love, as my son Pascal knows it, is defined by the number of hearts drawn on a card or by how many stories about dragons are told by flashlight under a down-filled comforter. I have to wait a few more years till I can report to him that in other times, other places, parents showed their love by willingly abandoning their children, like the parents of Tom Thumb. Similarly, the mother who made me glide on the water with the help of her long stick, surrounded by the high mountain peaks of Hoa L, wanted to give up her daughter, pass her to me. That mother wanted me to replace her. She preferred to cry over her child’s absence rather than watch her running after tourists to sell them the tablecloths she had embroidered. I was a young girl then. In the midst of those rocky mountains, I saw only a majestic landscape in place of that mother’s infinite love. There are nights when I run along the long strips of earth next to the buffalo to call her back, to take her daughter’s hand in mine.
Ru (Kim Thúy)
