Father and daughter

I am my father’s daughter, I am nothing and everything without him. My soul is torn each time I think of all the alleys and valleys he had walked. My father stayed after Saigon fell, never regretting the opportunity to leave, till the end he had hope. To end what is our family, my father put a gun to our heads on April 30th,1975; To risk our young life at sea for the freedom of words. I resent the voice of those who say – you hold too much of the past. My family’s scars are small in the vast populace of whom were violated children, stolen women and those missing at sea.

I have searched all my life for the man that is my father; Fathers of daughters, they know the mountains their daughters must climb – you must work twice as hard, bear children and be the mocking of man.

I see in you my friend, the aspirations of my father, your daughters see you for the man that you are. I see your heart breaks when her heart is broken. I see your smiles when she is loved; your anxieties when she loves. I know that you will make her is and will be – you are my father, my husband, my lover, my friend, my muse.

Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm, the blogger, poet, and translator, was born in 1971 in Phu Nhuan, Saigon, Vietnam. The pharmacist currently lives and works in Western Sydney, Australia.

By Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

There's magic in translating a body of work from one language to another.

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