Every country in the world has a different definition about a happy family or life. In America, people tend to build a material life along with a happy family, which is full of satisfaction such as: houses, money, cars, food, and entertainment. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese people have a totally different idea about a happy family. They don’t need a material life but a moral life, which is full of happiness and union. Parents love their children and vice versa. Unfortunately, life usually goes against what we expect. From 1975 until now, millions of Vietnamese have lived separately because of the “Vietnam War.” In the early of 1980s, my dad had to cross the Pacific Ocean to escape Communism and come to America while I was not born yet. It was just six months from his marriage date. I was born and had grown up in my mother’s hands. She had given me everything that I wanted. She had given me love, hope, and her whole heart. However, I still felt that I missed something deep inside. She was a perfect mom in this world, but it was not enough to have a good and happy family since my dad was gone. Why did I ask too much since I had everything? I had been asking myself many wonders that I couldn’t answer. Therefore, I want to share with you my thoughts and feelings when I had spent my childhood without my father so that you can tell me the answers that haven’t been revealed. Can a child grow up normally in the family he loses either one of his parents? How does he feel and what does he want from the world?

At five years of age, I had a full perception about life and relationship. I could realize I had a family and human life. However, it was also the period of time I first received a deep emotional pain. “Daddy, daddy, daddy back home from work”, Tuan yelled joyfully. I had heard that every evening from Tuan-my next-door friend. He ran quickly and jumped into his father. They held each other tightly and shared a sweet love. I could realize how much they missed each other during the haft day they were separated and how happy their family was. I could hear Thanh was laughing. I could hear he coddled himself with his father for what he wanted during the dinner “Daddy, I want this. Daddy, I wanted that”. A haft day of separation was not a long period of time. They didn’t know I had been separated from my Dad my whole life. They didn’t know their happy and warm scenario had left a painful scar in my heart. They didn’t know their smiles were my tears. They didn’t know their happiness was my sadness. Was I jealous or did I just feel pity for myself? Not either one of them, but both. How many times had I wished I could be Thanh- a lucky child? I couldn’t remember and I didn’t expect much as well. My wish was so humble. I wished I could hold my dad in my arms once, just once. I would look at his face and say, “Daddy, I love you”.

Nevertheless, it would never happen. I just wished I could be a dim regular star in the vast universe. However, it was just a fantasy. I, myself, was still a dying star-a pity child. I had cried too much but not enough for how much pain I had to endure inside of my soul. I had acted so quietly and weirdly. As in Borland’s poem, “The Lost Landl,” I felt like there was no room in this world for me-separation. Why did it happen to me? How were things in this world so unfair? Why did I have to suffer this feeling and destiny? How could I find the land that I lost, my father?

“I see myself
On the underworld side of the water,
The darkness coming in fast, saying
All the names I know for the lost land.”

Everybody needs somebody to love. I knew living without my father was too painful, but it even more so for my mom living without her husband. That was why I put all my love into my mother. I still remember how warm she had held me in the fierce cold nights. I still remember she told me the touching words “You are the love of my life, son. You are the only reason for me to live while your father was gone.” I didn’t want to cry, but I didn’t know why my tears were still dropping. Did I cry for my destiny or did I cry for my mother pain? How hurt was she right now? I bet she was hurter than I was. Why didn’t she cry as I did? I couldn’t answer, but I knew she didn’t want me to see her tears. “Mom, I loved you.” I said. “I love you too, son” she replied quickly. I had heard the phrase “I love you” days after days. It made me realize “how worthy I meant to my mother.” However, I wondered where I was in my father’s heart? It was clueless. In my mother’s arms, I missed my dad so bad and wondered if he missed me too. Dad, have you ever missed me and wondered how I have grown up:

“Now they are grown up and far away
And memory itself
Has become an emigrant,
Wandering in a place
Where love dissembles itself as landscape.”

The words from the poem “The lost land” have given me some energy to look forward and believed that my dad had missed and cared of me in the far land. However, days after days, the lonely feeling still existed in my heart because I hadn’t known any information about my dad and how he was living. As in the poem “Isolation….” by Arnold, time had been passing by but my dad was still not there in front of me. Joy and pain had been joining with hope:

“Ocean and clouds and night and day;
Lord autumns and triumphant springs;
And life, and others’ joy and pain,”

Dad, why did you not write me a letter or come back here so that I could know you were still alive? Or you have forgotten me and you didn’t know that I existed in this world?

“Shadows falling
On everything they had to leave?
And would love forever??”

Borland, why did you write the poem “The lost land”? Love is forever and forevermore. I knew my dad wouldn’t leave me and forget me. I believed my dad’s love for me is everlasting as my mother’s love for me. I believed that I would see my dad someday and give him my sweet love. I believed in me as Moore’s poem, “believe me”, written “Let thy loveliness fade as it will”. I believed my wish and dream would come true. Living without hope is meaningless. I had to be optimistic and trusted on my father. I had wished for a united family. I have dreamed of the day of “Thanh’s family”. As in Browning’s poem, “Aurora Leigh”, i would hear my father’s voice every time I came back from school. I would live in a full happy family in which my mom, dad, and I were having dinner together.

“Looked cold upon me. Could I find a home?
Among those mean red houses through the fog?
And when I heard my father’s language first.”

And the dream day had come; I received a letter and picture from my dad far way in America. He told me that he was fine and wanted to see me so bad. He promised me that he would come back and bring my mom and me to America. I was so happy. I felt like my life was renewed and I was the most happy child in the world at the moment. The world was smiling at me. Well, my faith was not as bad as what I thought because I would see my father soon. I felt that two continents were closing together and our hearts were connected as Arnold wrote in the poem “Isolation…”

“For surely once, they feel, we were
Parts of a single continent!
Now round us spreads the watery plain-
Oh might our marges meet again!”

Yes, I definitely needed my mother’s love, but it was not enough for me. A perfect world, which my mother had given me, seemed meaningless unless my father was there to spin the world for me. I didn’t need anything else. I hadn’t had as much candy, clothes, and innocent souls as other children had. I didn’t care about it because I had my mom instead. However, I needed him who could protect and alway be my side. I needed him as other children needed their fathers. I wanted to have what other children had, father and son relationship. Candy was sweet for other children, but not sweet for me. The sweetest thing must come from my father’s words. His message “coming back to the family” had had in my mind all the time. I had enriched and changed my attitude dramatically from the moment on. I wasn’t a quiet child as I used to. I made a lot of friends and talked to them freely. I didn’t easily lose my tempo as I used to. I didn’t act weirdly but friendly instead. I saw the world so brightly, not darkly as I used to see. I knew he had spined the world for me. I believed a long period of the separated time would not only give us more love, but also more feelings for each other. The optimistic sense is described clearly in the poem “Isolation…”. The poem made me believe “It doesn’t matter where you are, you are still right there in my heart, dad.”

” We were apart; yet, day by day
I bade my heart more constant be.
I bade it keep the world away
And grow a home for only three;
Nor feared but thy love likewise grew.”

Unfortunately, a few years later, he remarried and never ever came back to me as what he promised. My dream and hope were broken. I turned back to who I had been. Why did you give me hope then you destroyed it, dad? Why did you treat me like that? “The lost land” was still lost and never been found. “The isolation” was still the “isolation” itself and my life was still my life, which was without my dad. From the moment on, I didn’t trust anyone or anything. I wanted to love and to be loved, but I had gotten nothing as in the poem “Isolation…”:

“The heart can bind itself alone,
And faith may oft be unreturned.
Self-swayed out feelings ebb and swell
Thou lov’st no more-Farewell! Farewell!”

Finally, I realized that he didn’t come back because he had his new old life and he didn’t need me anymore. “I did not live, to have the faults of life.
There seemed more true life in my father’s grave” (Aurora Leigh by E. B. Browning). You left me. I didn’t want you anymore, or anyone. I must stand up by myself. I must walk on my own world, the world without my dad. I had been growing up in a sad memory and broken heart. I had been growing up without the most needed stuff, my father. I had been thinking a lot. I had been not as innocent and normal as other kids. I would be forever a weird and hard-to-understand person. Broken families not only bring sadness for wives and husbands, but also their kids. However, most parents don’t know what is going on inside of their kids and tend to ignore it because they think kids are always innocent. Better kids usually grow up with both their mothers and fathers. Please save your family so it will be possible for you to raise your kids normally and healthily, or you will see more ” dim dying stars” in the vast universe. …nhat khanh 2003