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Sunday, August 30, 2009

The Buddhist Holiday (Lễ Vu Lan, rằm tháng 7 âm lịch)

The burrial Ground of my village

Mum: "I'm visiting you, honey"
I am in ur lap, listening to ur lulling n avoiding the heat
from the Sun, Dad!



On the occasion of the Buddhist Hoilday 15th of July of Lunar year, I visited my Mum. This holiday is one of very nice traditions in which we show our gratefulness and appreciation to our ancestors in my country. Before this day, we do all good things to build, renew and decorate the tombs of our ancestor. And on this very important day, we all have a tray of steamed glutinous rice and plain boiled chicken together with kinds of fruit on the alters. We pray for our ancestor's souls.
Visiting my Dad's tombs, i missed him so much. It seemed as if he were there lulling my younger sisters and brothers to sleep, as if he were there teaching us sing and dance on the yard in the nice moon every night after work! Dad devoted all their life working for the family, did many jobs as fishing, collecting fire wood...for our meals. We, 7 of us grew up in their laps thoughtlessly. Hard life, but the home was full of laughter. Only when mature did i realised that Mum and Dad had pretended not to be hungry so many times to give their shares to us! They did their best to give us our schooling in the hope that we would get brighter future in comparison with theirs. Thanks for their strictness we all got University Education. But when we got this, their hair became grey, their backs bent! and one day in 1999 on 3rd of May (lunar year) Dad left us! Time has passed so quickly, We, Mum n us have managed without him for 10 years! If only i could be back to the hard days when Dad sat there beside Mum looking at us singing and dancing with a warm smile!

Nhân dịp lễ Vu Lan rằm tháng 7 âm lịch, tôi về thăm mẹ. Lễ vu lan là một trong những tập tục đẹp của người theo Đạo Phật chúng tôi, đây là dịp để con cháu thể hiện sự biết ơn đối với tổ tiên. Trước rằm, chúng tôi làm mọi việc tốt đẹp để xây, tu bổ và trang trí mộ chí cho ông bà, cha mẹ. Vào ngày rằm trên bàn thờ tổ mọi nhà đều có mâm xôi gà và các loại hoa quả. chúng tôi cầu nguyện cho linh hồn tổ tiên được siêu thoát nơi suối vàng.
Thăm mộ Cha, tôi nhớ Người quá! Cứ như là văng vẳng đâu đây tiếng Cha ru các em tôi ngủ. Cứ như là cha đang dạy chị em tôi múa hát dưới ánh trăng trước hiên nhà mỗi khi cha mẹ xong việc. Cha đã dành trọn cuộc đời mình cho cuộc sống gia đình, làm đủ mọi việc từ đánh cá, kiếm củi... để đổi lấy bữa gạo cho chúng tôi. Bảy chị em tôi đã lớn lên trong vòng tay yêu thương của Cha mẹ một cách vô tư lự.Cuộc sống thiếu thốn nhưng nhà lúc nào cũng đầy ắp tiếng cười. Chỉ sau này khi trưởng thành tôi mới hiểu ra rằng Cha Mẹ đã bao lần giả vờ không đói bụng để nhường cơm cho chúng tôi! Cha Mẹ đã làm hết sức mình để chúng tôi không thất học với hy vọng chị em tôi sẽ có tương lai sáng sủa hơn Cha mẹ. Nhờ sự nghiêm khắc của họ mà 7 chị em tôi đều đã tốt nghiệp Đại Học. Nhưng khi chúng tôi có được cái chữ, thì tóc Cha Me đã bạc, lưng mẹ đã còng. Và một ngày năm 1999, 3-5 âm lịch Cha đã bỏ chúng tôi lại trên đời với mẹ! Thời gian trôi đi nhanh quá, thấm thoát đã 10 năm Mẹ và chúng tôi sống thiếu cha. Giá như tôi có thể trở lại thuở hàn vi để được một lần nhìn thấy Cha ngồi đó bên Mẹ nhìn chị em tôi múa hát với nụ cười ấm áp trên môi!

5 comments:

  1. Very well done dear. I can feel the warmth from your family. Made me feel lucky that my parents are still around. I just heard my father was held up at his store. Luckily unhurt and the police caught the man. I have warm memories of my grandparents who are gone now. I remembered them too when reading your message. Wish you a day and a happy week.

    Howard

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  2. Thanks for sharing it with me, Howard. People who still have parents alive are lucky ones. So we should do nice things so that we will not feel a regret afterwards when they are gone.

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  3. Dear Vuon,
    Paying homage to our ancestors is a good tradition. This tradition is observed almost in all societies all over the world in this or that manner.
    Such traditions would have come into existance because of the iner sense of gratefulness deeply embeded in the hearts of man kind sicnce the inception of the human civilisation.In fact a human being is characterised only by such qualities . But by passing of times, the man of our time is lossing humanly feelings for his ancestors. Many of us are hardly taking care of our frail and ailing parants, paying regard due to them and sharing their feelings which is essential for mitigating their lonlyness. Alhough, our old parants are facilitated with all the stuffs they may require ,but it is a fact that the most curse of our oldsters is that they have been left alone in their lonlyness for living with their past memories and no one is there to understand their emotions. oldsters feel themselves as a scrape left in a corner waiting to be disposed off by their own kins..
    I am not going to pay you thanks that you have paid homage to your father and performed a ritual.. In this time of pomp and show, our rich men exploit every occasion of rituals for showing themselves as having respects for their parants.But in fact they do not So, merely going to the tomb is not the thing that caught me to write this comment.infact I got deeply impressed to see that you have rememberd your father by going back to your childhood and memorised all the sacrifieces of your parants with deep sense of gratitude tried to realise their untold sacrifieces. Now that we have also been blessed to be parants, we should realise that our sacrifiece for our children is Zero as compared to the sacrifieces of our parants.
    Our parants would simply think for our betterment. You have rightly obseved that you were grown thoughtlessly in the lull of your parants.Now a days We can not give that kind of thoughtless lull and laughter to our children. As a parant we do arrange a lot of facility for our children and manage many oppertunities .but it is also a fact that we impose our many unfulfilled ambitions over them. We have filled up their mind with future fear. parants of our times do not provide the real affection a child really needs.
    The second reason your write-up caught me for making this long comment is that I suddenly fell into the memories of my late mother who lived with me untill her demise at the age of 75. Let me say that parants of our generation are now a myth for the generation to come. we were lucky enough.We parants of our times are so much over conscious for our children’future but not having that kind of innocent affection for them.
    Once again I must thank you for this write-up full of sentiments leading all of us to commemorate our parants. your snap sitting in the lap of your dad is quite meaningful.I can understand all that u would have felt .

    kapil

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  4. How deeply meaningful your comment, Kapil! It takes me time to think of it and understand it! After all, you are my true friend!

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  5. I also am touched by your remembrance of your father. I have lost mine and think of him often. Thank you for sharing you customs and thoughts.

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