DA NANG – Opposed by his lover’s father, for nine consecutive weekends, Cuong crossed 600km to Gia Lai, knelt in front of the door, asked to meet him but still failed.
In August, Hoa Vang people occasionally saw a motorbike driven by a woman, two baskets full of melons in the back, and a man with a short arm sitting neatly. Sometimes, the man turns his head, makes jokes, and the two laugh together. They are Nguyen The Cuong (born 1982, Quang Nam) and Ms. Tran Thi Minh Thu.
Cuong lost his arms after an accident while working as a part-time worker in late 2004. “After 3 surgeries due to an infection, most of his arms were amputated”, Nguyen The Cuong began to question story.
Being a 2nd year student at Da Nang Polytechnic University, losing both hands made Cuong fall into a crisis, he even thought once about “liberating himself and his family”. But his mother’s encouragement helped him get up. Staying at home for a while to heal his wound, Cuong went alone to Da Nang to rent a place to open an Internet shop and repair computers, and earn money to send money back to his hometown for his adoptive brother, brother who was studying and his father was paralyzed by the ear. accident many years ago.
The man with no hands met the girl Tran Thi Minh Thu for the first time in 2005, when he entered Ho Chi Minh City to make fake hands. Minh Thu (born in 1984), a Gia Lai pedagogical student, also brought her father to install the hand. During the three days of treatment together, Thu’s father felt fond of the young man. Back home, he often called to ask. The story between the two men only lasted for a few minutes. Not knowing what else to say, Thu’s father gave the phone to his daughter to encourage Cuong.
The follow-up calls of the two young people took place more often. From the initial 10-15 minutes, their conversation lasts 2-3 hours and still feels lacking. After only three years of hearing each other’s voices over the phone, he took up the courage to invite Thu to Da Nang to play. A few days later, she actually visited. On the first trip, the man with no hands bought his girlfriend a heart-shaped key chain.
After the trip, Cuong called to confess his love. Information quickly reached his father’s ears, he firmly opposed this love affair and confiscated Thu’s phone. As a man who also lost his arms in war and watched his wife do a lot of work to feed the whole family and died of hard work at a young age, he knew the burden would be on his daughter’s shoulders. decided not to let Letter “go into the tracks of her mother’s wreck”.
Knowing his girlfriend’s father objected, on Saturday morning, Cuong passed 600 km from Da Nang to Gia Lai and asked to meet him to present and persuade. Responding to the boy was just a closed, silent gate. Extreme zero, he knelt outside, seeing only Thu said: “If you kneel, don’t mind”. For nine consecutive weeks, Cuong regularly took the car to Thu’s house and … knelt. But the father did not say a word.
Knowing he could not shake his father, in July 2009, Thu quit his job and fled to Da Nang with Cuong. Seeing his lover appearing in front of the house, sweating, the young man immediately passed his girlfriend back to Quang Nam and talked about the wedding with his mother.
Three days later, the wedding took place. The guests were only 100 people, but more than 200 people attended because they were curious. No questions, betel and areca, no car flowers, bride and groom’s clothes only hire a single set to wear the whole ceremony. No one attended the girl’s house. To treat her neighbors’ concerns, Cuong’s mother explained that the wedding would be held a second time at the girl’s house because the road was far away.
After the wedding, the young couple pass every day 18 kilometers from Quang Nam to Da Nang to work at Cuong’s restaurant.
Knowing the daughter ran away to get married, Thu’s father officially resigned from the face. The day Thu and his wife returned to their mother’s death anniversary, he bluntly declared: “I don’t have a daughter but a son-in-law”. Knowing that his father was still angry, du was scolded. Cuong and Thu often returned home to visit him. For the next two years, the father considered them non-existent, determined not to say a single word. At dinner, Cuong often hid in the garden to avoid sitting with his father-in-law.
In 2011, Thu gave birth to her first son and brought her to visit him. Having been told before that a grandchild would return, Thu’s father bought many baby items such as diapers, nutritious porridge … but refused to admit he bought them. One afternoon while she was doing the laundry outside, the baby woke up and cried. Granddad saw that and called: “Let the boy cry”. This is also the first sentence he said to his daughter after more than 4 years from the face.
“Your father, where did your father bring you here?”, My grandfather brought his crib while petting his grandchild. Listening to his wife, knowing that his father was relieved, the next day, Cuong took the car to Gia Lai. In the good conversation between the two men, Thu’s father mused: “Don’t make my daughter suffer”. Cuong was certain: “I promise you”.
In 2015, the couple borrowed more money, bought a 140 square meter land plot to build a house. The second son was born, making the family atmosphere more warm and bustling. The income from Internet shops is still enough for them to enjoy living and raising their children.
But in early 2017, Cuong handed over the shop to his wife, went to Binh Duong and Da Lat to learn to do clean agriculture. He mortgaged his red book to borrow from a bank and rented 3 hectares of land in Hoa Vang district to grow vegetables, melon with high technology application.
In the first year of loss, the second year breaks even and it is expected that in 2020, it will start to make a profit of 200-300 million VND when Covid-19 breaks out, eliminating the hope of the disabled man. The farm’s goods were in backlog because the main source of the purchase was that restaurants and hotels had to be closed.
Last month, a vegetable buyer took a photo of ripe melon on Cuong’s farm. After sharing, many people in Da Nang texted and called to help him and his wife. There are customers, every day the couple piles about 120 kg of melons on a motorcycle to deliver around the city. Each day, on average, they travel about 200 km, delivering more than 100 orders to customers.
And since then, the trips “rescue” the couple’s melon farm continuously rolled on the road. Despite their hard work, their happy laughter still throbbed a corner.