🌾 I Live Alone, in a Remote and Poor Countryside, Without a Husband, Children, or Family of My Own. My Entire Life, I Have Worked Tirelessly in the Fields, Leading an Existence of Extreme Frugality.
One year, on a storm-drenched night, I found an abandoned newborn baby outside the temple gate — still red, wrapped in a thin, soaked towel.
No one wanted to take him in. So, I did.
I named him Minh, hoping he would grow up to be intelligent and bright. Raising a child with no blood ties was already difficult; doing so in poverty was even harder. I borrowed everywhere in the village, even from the public bank, just to pay his school fees. There were times I survived on rice porridge so that he could have a carton of milk and a new notebook like the other children at school.
Minh grew up, sharp, obedient, and silent. He didn’t call me «Mom,» only «Aunt,» but I didn’t hold it against him. All that mattered was that he studied and became a good person.
The year he passed the university entrance exam, I emptied all my savings and mortgaged the old house to borrow again. Minh lowered his head and told me gently:
— «I will do everything I can to succeed, Aunt. Wait for my return.»
But he never came back. Four years passed, then five… not a call, not a letter. I asked his classmates, his old high school — it was as if he had never existed. The phone number was canceled, the address vanished. In silence, I continued my life: carrying baskets of vegetables to the market, taking odd jobs, collecting scrap at night, to slowly pay off my debts.
Thirteen years after the first day I walked into the bank to borrow money to raise him, I returned, trembling, a bundle of papers in my hands, my back stooped, my vision blurry. I said:
— «I’ve come to settle the last debt. I will pay the rest.»
The employee checked the computer, looked at me for a long time, then frowned.
— «One moment, please. This loan… has already been repaid. Two years ago.»
I stood there, stunned.
— «What? Who… who paid…?»
She looked at the screen, then leaned down to read:
— «Account Note: ‘Repayment on behalf of my aunt — the only person who loves me unconditionally.’
— Sender: Tran Minh.»
I was speechless. For a moment, my knees gave way, and I gripped the counter to keep from falling.
He hadn’t forgotten me.
He had settled his debt.
In silence, just as he had left.
My tears streamed down my face in the middle of the bank. Not from anger, but because this old heart finally understood: the orphan hadn’t left to abandon me… He was finding his own way to return.
