Hà got married.

Sơn left and never returned, like a bird with a broken wing that kept flying until the sky itself forgot him.

In the house that remained were four siblings and our parents, each of us taking on a task, moving through the days as one moves through water, slowly, heavily, working relentlessly from dawn to dusk, inside the house and out in the garden, trading, tilling the soil, hoping only to get through each day: enough rice to eat, enough money for school fees, and enough to buy a warm jacket when the Northeast monsoon swept across the highlands.

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Pleiku, the red-earth highlands.

The dry season stretches from November to May. The Lao winds arrive sharp and unforgiving, scraping against the skin like blades dulled by time. The wind does not simply pass over the roof; it presses in, forces its way into every crack of life. With each gust, another layer of red dust settles over the house—fine as powder, stubborn as memory. When trucks rumbled past, their wheels grinding into the dirt road, dust rose in thick clouds, spilling over fences, slipping through door gaps, clinging to tables and chairs, covering everything like a heavy, suffocating mist. In those days, few in the neighborhood opened their doors. No matter how carefully the house was swept, turning away was enough for the dust to return.

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Then the rainy season came.

Highland rain does not pour and leave, it seeps in and stays, day after day, month after month. The sky sinks low, gray and swollen, pressing down on the land. The red dirt road in front of the house dissolves into mud—slick, treacherous. Bicycle wheels wobble, bodies lean and falter, one careless step and a person is swallowed by the earth.

On rainy days, the highlands seem to fold inward, holding their breath. Sound disappears. Only the rain remains, drumming endlessly on the roof, wearing down the hours. The smell of wet soil, rotting grass, fresh mud hangs in the air, clinging to clothes, to hair, to memory.

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Our house stood on that red dirt road, where in the dry season dust buried the path, and in the rainy season mud clutched at every step. From the outside it looked spacious, but inside it was hollow and cold. Our most valuable possessions were a color television and a xoan-wood sleeping platform my parents had brought from the old house, remnants of a life already past. At the very back lay an endless rice field, wind sweeping across it day and night, as if determined to drive away the last traces of warmth left inside the house.

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On rainy nights, water leaked everywhere, through the roof, into the kitchen, across the veranda. We huddled together to sleep, our backs pressed against one another, sharing what little warmth we had. Our ears caught nothing but the pounding rain and the drip of water falling into buckets placed hastily around the house. Each drop landed with a quiet insistence, tapping at the nerves. Sleep never came easily. We jolted awake in the dark, afraid the buckets would overflow, afraid the water would creep toward our feet, toward where we lay. The blankets were thin, damp with the smell of rain; even wrapped tightly, the cold found its way in, settling beneath the skin.

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Those were nights when I lay still, listening to the wind slip through wall gaps, to the roof shuddering in waves, waiting for morning as one waits for release. On those nights, rain was not simply rain, it was something that hovered, something that watched. I curled myself tightly into my mother’s arms, afraid to let my body relax.

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Then came winter days.

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There was no bathroom, only a well behind the house, exposed in the open yard. We carried bucket after bucket, standing in the biting wind. Cold water poured down our backs, stealing breath, tightening flesh. Wet clothes clung to the skin as the wind struck again. I trembled, wanting to cry, but my sisters endured in silence, and so I learned to do the same, to swallow sound, to endure.

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Beside the well, Dad had planted a papaya tree. Each time I bathed, I looked at it, letting my eyes rest there as the cold sank deeper into my body. Slender yet upright, its leaves spread wide against the wind, as though it could withstand anything. One day, I noticed it had grown large, its roots cracking the concrete around the well. I told my sister the tree was bravely strong.

But...fearing it would damage the well, Dad cut it down.
That afternoon, I cried.

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The cold of those days did not pass as quickly as a season. It settled somewhere in the body, quietly, like sediment. Years later, even now, when I hear sudden rain or feel a cold gust sweep across the street, my back still tightens instinctively. Only when I turned thirty did I understand: some fears are not born of the present, but carried forward from a house that once stood between rain and wind.

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At that time, our family’s livelihood was confined to the backyard garden, a chicken coop, a pigsty, and a small fish pond. Mother spent her days at the market, familiar with every stall, every price, and every shake of the head from buyers short of money. Đông was only nine, just finished memorizing the multiplication table, and already followed Mother to the market to help sell vegetables—her small hands learning how to weigh, how to count money, how to read adult faces.

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On sunny days, Dad worked the garden from early morning with Hải and Thu. They planted coffee, corn, and beans, tending each plant as if nurturing the last fragile threads of hope. Sweat soaked the back of a father past fifty and a boy not yet fifteen. When the rains came, Dad brewed rice wine to sell, the smoke clinging to his hair, his clothes, even his restless sleep.

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The chickens were healthy some days, sick on others. Dad read books, taught himself how to give injections, how to prevent disease. Then came bird flu, then another outbreak. At night, Mom lay awake, turning over again and again, waiting for daylight to see whether the flock was still intact. Each morning, another chicken lay still.

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Before the chickens were grown enough to sell, they died. With no profit in sight, my parents turned to raising pigs. The pigsty stood behind the kitchen; no matter how often it was cleaned, the stench lingered. When friends came to visit, we were ashamed. Gradually, we kept the house closed more often. Each time pigs were weighed for sale, the losses outweighed the gains. The debt ledger did not shrink, it only grew longer.

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Meals were therefore sometimes enough, sometimes not. In summer, we roasted peanuts, ground them with salt and a little sugar, and made do. In winter, there were days when Mom returned from the market with only a small bag of pork fat. We rendered it over the stove, poured it into an old military canteen my parents had brought back from the war. At mealtime, when the rice was freshly cooked, each of us received a spoonful mixed into the hot rice, drizzled with fish sauce, sprinkled with scallion oil. And still, we ate with satisfaction, because our stomachs were full.

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On rainy nights, frogs croaked in the fields. After setting up mosquito nets for us, Dad would quietly head out to catch them, sometimes returning with fish, sometimes with a snake braised in lemongrass and chili. On those rare evenings, even the residue clinging to the pot was enough. We mixed rice into it and scraped it clean.

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And so, even today, I cherish the meals, and I cherish the sunny days just as deeply. The bright, ordinary mornings when sunlight spilled into the house, warming the floor, drying damp clothes, lifting the heaviness from our backs. Days when the sky was kind, when hunger no longer felt sharp, when the world seemed briefly generous. Those sunny days taught me hope in its simplest form, that warmth could return, that light could linger, that life, even then, could still be gentle.

I cherish every meal. In each bite there is not only flavor, but the slow return of memory: my father’s thin silhouette moving through the night, the warmth of siblings pressed together under cold rain, my mother’s quiet sighs, and the small, satisfied smiles that appeared only after the pot had been scraped clean.

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The fullness of today is a quiet gratitude, offered to a life that carried us through its hardest seasons, and taught me to hold close even the smallest blessings: a meal, a clear sky, a warm afternoon, and the fragile, luminous joy of simply being alive.

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If you know me, you probably already know how deeply I treasure food: every meal comes with my loud prayer, and sometimes, with tears:

!!omg, this is soooo good :)