Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Do you love your mom? I love my mom dearly. Almost everyone loves his/her mom. What’s the news? Well, sometimes I meet somebody who says s/he hates her/his mom. Of course, I would understand they have their own reasons, about which I usually don’t ask, just to respect their privacy.

Loving mom is important because, in our culture, mom is every where, folks:

– Mother Viet Nam (Mẹ Việt Nam)

– Heroic Viet Nam Mothers (các Mẹ Việt Nam Anh Hùng).

– Tao is Mother of the universe – Tao Te Chinh (Đạo là mẹ của vạn vật – Đạo Đức Kinh)

– Mother Ocean (Mẹ Trùng Dương – Mẹ Biển)

– Mother rivers (sông cái, sông mẹ)

– Mother Âu Cơ (Mother Âu Cơ brought 50 children to the mountains, who are us today; father Lạc Long Quân brought 50 children to the sea, who became sea creatures. My interpretation of the legend).

– Mother Religion (Đạo Mẫu) – worshiping the highest God named “Mother.”

– The first known monarch of Vietnam was Trưng Trắc who, along with her sister Trưng Nhị, led a rebellion against Chinese rule in 40 AD.

– Father-Mother Emperor Phùng Hưng (Bố Cái Đại Vương, who was the leader of the uprising against the Tang Dynasty’s domination of Annam during the third period of Chinese domination (602–905) in Vietnamese history.

– Proverb: “Fatherless children eat rice with fish, motherless children sleep on leaves” (Con không cha ăn cơm với cá, con không mẹ lót lá mà nằm).

– The woman as mountain standing solidly in one place, and the man as water going places, in Tản Đà’s poem The vow of mountain and water – Thề non nước.

– Many scholars thought that the Vietnamese used to be matriarchal. I agree with them.

– And of course, Viet Nam’s national anthem on Mother – Mother’s Heart (by Y Vân):

Lòng mẹ (Y Vân) Lòng mẹ bao la như biển Thái Bình dạt dào Tình mẹ tha thiết như dòng suối hiền ngọt ngào Lời mẹ êm ái như đồng lúa chiều rì rào Tiếng ru bên thềm trăng tà soi bóng mẹ yêu. …

Mother’s heart (Y Vân) Mother’s heart is a vast as Pacific Ocean Mother’s love is as tender as a gentle stream Mother’s words are as gentle as rustling rice fields in afternoon A lullaby on the porch, with slanting moonlight shining on beloved mother … (TĐH, translated Sept 12. 2024

Why are all these signs about mother important to us?

Because, we love our mothers dearly, and we see mothers exist in one form or another everywhere in our culture. That should always remind us of mother’s love, sacrifices, and life-long hard labor to raise us up.

That is also a life-long lesson for us to remember: Live as mother has lived – loving, sacrificing, and hard working, for our people.

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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