Old Lady of Sunset

“… I walk in the sunset/ When the afternoon light falls/ When the sun still lingers/ I alone watch the lost bird/ And my heart feels sad…”.

(Song "I walk in the sunset" - Van Phung)

I was born and grew up in poverty in a fishing village near Ke Ga Lighthouse. Since 1959, in the afternoons walking on the beach I sang: “I walk in the sunset”, when I was a child, thinking back I was too romantic without knowing it! And in 1960, I left the afternoons on the beach, far away from the poor fishing village to go to the province to study.

There were two first Slow Rock songs that were popular in the South at that time, “I go in the sunset” by Van Phung and “Kiep tha huong” by Lam Phuong. I chose “I go in the sunset” as the background for this article “Old lady of the sunset”. This is a real old lady, I saw her in 2010, now I don’t see her anymore. And since the “old lady of the sunset” went into the dark, I haven’t returned to this coffee shop, because there’s nothing left to be happy about.

I have lived in Ho Chi Minh City since the war ended, I am not a true Saigonese. Every sunset, I sit at a sidewalk cafe in the suburbs drinking coffee to “listen” to the sunset…

Drinking coffee was just an excuse to watch the sunset… and I noticed an old woman with a hunched back walking slowly and steadily down a short corridor. Every afternoon, except when it rained. She walked back and forth until the sunset. I called her “Old Lady Sunset”. And once I asked her why she didn’t go in the morning, she said, she was very busy in the morning… I thought, it turns out, at her age she “still has a lot of work!”.

Although she was a little weak, her legs looked determined, so every afternoon I saw her walking, but only to a certain point and then returning from the starting point. She had a cane, but she did not lean on it, her two hands were behind her, holding the cane tightly, and it seemed that this was the only position that kept her from falling (and she held the cane only to protect her back in case she fell).

How many sunsets have passed, and I fear that one day I will no longer see her! Looking at her, I miss my mother. My mother passed away a few years after the peace , which means that unlike her, my mother has not yet enjoyed peace, even though my mother suffered because of the war, so she always longed for peace!

We know that birth, aging, sickness and death are inevitable, but who doesn't "love life and fear death?" Just like this life has many endings: the end of the river, the end of the road, the end of the season, the end of the year... all of those endings can come back to the beginning, but only the end... of life cannot come back!

For many years, I have observed her, her back is shaped like a bow, when she walks, the road and her face seem to be two parallel lines, sometimes she forces herself to look forward to determine her destination, then turns back, then continues walking slowly...

Getting to know her, I learned that she was a native of Quang Tri who fled the war in Saigon in 1974. She said that she was not afraid of poverty, she was only afraid of planes and cannons… And she began to recall the pain of the war years… Oh, this is a “news old lady”.

Listening to her story, I saw that her life was very similar to my mother's life:

- There was also a time when I was listless in the fields, potato fields... the back had endured the freezing rains, the scorching sunlight, bent over pulling up rice seedlings, hoeing, picking, carrying, carrying... all to raise my children. The endurance of that seemingly resilient back is challenging time, but time is infinite, and humans are finite, and when the back reaches its limit, it will be paralyzed and unable to bounce back up!

Hunched back and hunchback “two in one” seem to be close to each other, but it turns out to be a very far distance in life. Hunched back to make a living, if not escape poverty, must continue to hunch back until the back is hunchbacked… And hunchback has left the consequence of hunchbacked back.

The old lady with a hunched back exercises at sunset not to live long, but only to wish that if she is still alive, please give her some health to be close to her children and grandchildren as long as possible.

And one day... the old woman with a hunchback will lie down to... straighten her back and leave this life forever... I'm sorry you have to say this, because I also told my mother that when she lies straight and never gets up again, her life will be liberated!

This afternoon the sunset slowly falls… the sun like a red marble disappears behind the tall buildings, the old lady of sunset also disappears behind the row of dilapidated houses in the poor suburbs, and I sing alone in my heart:

“… I alone watch the lost bird

But my heart feels sad...

Source: https://baobinhthuan.com.vn/ba-gia-hoang-hon-111969.html