As for me, I understand your quietness. You stand there with your arms crossed, yet even though your eyes look at me you cannot say anything. What does the word “good-bye” mean, because it doesn’t express your love for me? I think about the conversations between us. You said to me that you care for me more than anyone in the world, like Khiem loved me before. You said that right now your life is centered only on your job and how can you care for me? I listen and it moves me; I believe you, but I still question myself. Is there a truth like that? Why do you love me? Or is that the highest prize of those who serve the Revolution? I suddenly understand how people can sacrifice their entire lives to be true to the Revolution… because the Revolution trains them to become very high and beautiful and ties them together making them stronger than anything else in the world. What is more honorable than to live in the family of the Revolution?
October 23, 1968. After all the days of rain, the weather turned cold. At the beginning of cold weather I feel nothing is more precious than being with family. The fighting daily becomes more terrible and worrying. When will the dream come true for all the people in both North and South? In spite of sadness and fatigue, that is my only dream, and that of all thirty million Vietnamese. Dreams born in these years have ripened and have then already fallen!
During the long and windy nights a thin piece of material is not warm enough and I am kept awake thinking about all those people. Thousands and thousands of images of people that I love come before my eyes. Whenever I see black hair falling across a face and black eyes glancing up, I don’t know what to say. Is this a complaint? No! I am not a cold person; even a friendship is enough to touch my heart, not to mention a very precious love. But hair already covers the beauty of his face, and the eyes already have spoken silently and calmly for a long time. So how can you blame an old friend when you always use the word “love”?
October 24, 1968. An operation at the last phase of a stomach cancer. With a very simple procedure I operated to find the extent, but was very sorry when I found the cancer had spread to another organ. I couldn’t do more than that so closed the stomach again and very sorrowfully looked at the slowly dying patient. This afternoon beside his bed I felt so much regret. He tried to speak and smile, but tears still ran from his eyes. “I never complain about anything, I know you and all the comrades in the clinic have tried very hard to help, but I will never get well again. So it doesn’t matter to me if I stay here, then I will go to the hill to rest with the other comrades. If I return home it will only be to see my parents the one time and then to die.”
What can I say to him now? I stand there very ashamed. Of course there is no cure for him whatever, but still it is possible to extend his life a little. But this time it seems like I am as one surrounded who raises his hands and lets the enemy take away his weapons.
October 26, 1968. Don’t ever ask too much of any situation. There is nothing without limits Thuy. So think it over, look at things objectively and consider everything; put yourself in this state and you can see very clearly.
November 1, 1968. The atmosphere of this place feels warmer every day. It is as though I am a child of the Party living in the mother’s heart. This is because of improvements in the job. A victory, for from all reports last year the dispensary at Duc Pho was the most modern in the entire province for cures, and I am one of all of the exceptional people here. That is a victory for us all, but I have my own small part of it.
Looking back at the road I have traveled I am not sorry; in the rainy season of ’67 I was very firm and there were thousands and thousands of challenges for the petty bourgeoise, a girl physician who just left her student’s chair and is practicing to be a leader!
I hope that I will improve all my good points, control my weaknesses, not be satisfied with my own performance, and try working harder to improve more.
