Remember your mother’s red fire that warms you in winter

Every day, a middle-aged woman like me, without a husband or children, nor concerned with family matters, is busy with so many busy company projects that I forget that I also need to rest. Then, after a serious illness and having to lie quietly in the hospital, I was surprised to realize how quickly I lived my life.

Every morning, when I wake up in the hospital room, I often keep the habit of quickly putting on a cold shirt, stepping out onto the steps to welcome the cold of early winter, hugging myself with both hands. The wind nonchalantly played through my hair, making me shiver slightly, even though I was holding a cup of ginger tea and taking sips. Although the cold at the beginning of winter was not too cold, it was enough to make me miss the old winter days with my parents, yearning for so much warmth of love.

Suddenly remembering my childhood, every cold winter morning, while my sister and I were still huddled in warm cotton blankets, my mother would wake up early and gently light the wood stove to cook dinner. breakfast for the children. My family’s circumstances at that time were inherently difficult, so my mother could not prepare much for her children. Breakfast is simply a little boiled sweet potato or sometimes a pot of white porridge, add a few branches of pandan leaves and eat it with braised fish sauce.

I remember my mother often used a clay pot, added a little lard to the stove to heat, then put the onions in the pot and sauteed until fragrant, adding a little fish sauce, pepper and spices. So there was a pot of fragrant braised fish sauce for the children to eat with white porridge. When the fragrant smell of fish sauce mixed with the spicy scent of kitchen smoke spread throughout the house, the children were startled awake. Some days it’s still white porridge but wants to change the taste so my mother replaces the side dish with pickles. These are pickles made by my mother from many young melons harvested after each season.

After the melon has been salted, the mother will carefully slice it thinly and squeeze out the salty water, then stir-fry it with pork fat, adding a little seasoning to taste. Just as simple as that, my family had another dish along with white porridge with a rustic yet delicious flavor. My family has a lot of children, so white porridge for breakfast is always the most suitable choice. Even though children naturally love to eat a variety of dishes, we understand our family’s needy situation, so we often encourage each other to try to fill our stomachs, so as not to make our parents sad. Even now, strangely enough, white porridge still follows me through the years. Every time I get sick, even though I can afford to buy more dishes than before, I still crave braised white porridge with a faint aroma like before.

As the eldest daughter in the family, I often wake up earlier than my younger siblings to help my mother in the kitchen. Next to the embers of the fire, I often sat quietly, hugging my notebook, reading, watching my mother’s figure stooping to cook porridge in the corner of the kitchen. Occasionally, my mother would look at me and gently ask: “Are you cold, daughter?”. These few simple words made me feel warm, because I understood my mother’s countless love and care for me. Even though the wind is still cold outside the window, as a child I still don’t feel cold anymore because besides the fire, my mother’s love warms my heart.

During those winter days, I was quite fond of playing, so I often sat together with the children in the neighborhood at the beginning of the alley, picking up leaves and small flowers to save for the game next door. Children have a playful nature, so they don’t care much about their red cheeks due to the cold winter weather. As if we were afraid that our children would catch a cold because of the weather, my mother and I each dressed us in layers of warm clothes. Even though they were just faded shirts with many sewn seams, passed down from our brothers and sisters from the previous season, we children were all excited as if we were wearing new clothes to welcome the cold winter wind. . Not only did we wander around the neighborhood with all kinds of mischief, but we also invited each other to go out to the fields to get into mischief.

At the end of the year, it is also the time when my hometown enters the harvest season, so all four directions stretch out in green, very pleasing to the eye. After each harvest, the remaining tomatoes will lie hidden deep in the lush leaves as if playing hide and seek, to challenge the curiosity of every child. At that time, we farm children were so busy searching that we couldn’t help but scream with joy when we held a ripe red fruit in our hands. Sometimes, our children’s joy is simply sitting at the edge of the field, watching the mothers and grandmothers unload potatoes. There’s nothing more exciting than watching adults shake loose layers of brown soil and then all sorts of big and small tubers appear, lurking around like a group of docile piglets. Even though I’m an adult, I still remember the feeling of running around playing with my friends in the fields that day. Occasionally, the wind plays with her messy hair, the wind carries the fragrant scent of the fields, caressing the innocent smile of a child.

In the afternoons, when dusk gradually falls, I often sit next to the small window, looking out at the winter twilight sky. The twilight scene chased the fading light of the dying day shining straight onto the wall outside the gate. That is the time when parents return after a day of work. Looking at my parents’ silhouettes, I didn’t care about the unfinished game and stood hesitantly at the entrance of the alley for a long time. Only when I saw the familiar silhouettes and gentle smiles of my parents in the distance did I jump up and cradled my head in my father’s lap, sipping the afternoon gift from my mother with immense joy. Probably because I was too young, I couldn’t recognize the haggard figure and thin hands of my parents who had diligently raised my sister and me over the years. Even though winter is cold, it is always warm for me in a world full of family love.

Memories of winter days are the wisps of kitchen smoke floating in the wind, blending with the gray sky. The child, me, sat quietly waving my hands next to the red fire, inhaling the aroma of braised meat and pepper from the boiling clay pot on the stove. I often eagerly dig up each potato that has been carefully buried in the rice husk. During those difficult days, just a few pieces of baked potato with a sweet taste was strangely enough to appeal to a child like me. Then at dinner, the whole family gathers around the dinner table, enjoying a few frugal dishes, listening to the wind whistling through the door.

Many years passed, my parents passed away, and I also left my hometown to settle in a far away country. But family memories are always a silent fire that spreads in my heart every time I remember them. That fire, during many turning points in my life, became my belief to overcome many difficulties in life.