Life is a chain of pre-determined incidents; it is fate that brought us together. Many a time have I asked myself: "What if I had never met you?" Without your guiding paddle, this child would never have known where she would drift to in the midst of the current of life and literature. I still remember the first time I, in utter silence, beheld your smile on the photo of the first day of school; you, with a radiant smile, were letting the balloons carrying our dreams take off. In that smile sparkled hope and belief in us, children taking baby steps on the rough and turbulent path of literature. At that very moment, I was talking to myself: nothing would have been more valuable a gift for you than our realization of those elevating dreams.

It cannot be asserted that three high-school years is either long or short. Yet, you have been guiding us for the past two years. For two years you have been imparting knowledge to us with your whole heart. Yet we have hardly grown up: we are still making you sad, making you cry. But it is those very same naughty and goofy children who are filled with pride and affection when talking about you. Our age, the age of the flamboyant flower, is short, but every moment is rendered whole with the presence of yours by our sides. You used to joke, what would have happened if you had not taught us. Don't! I'm afraid to even think about that...

At first, literature was for us mere confidants; then you came and made it our own flesh and blood. You lit in our hearts the fire of passion for prose and poems, so that we could laugh, could cry with the Chí Phèo, the Old Man Hạc, the Mr. Hộ, the little girl Liên, etc. Never will I forget our lesson on Nam Cao when you acted as Chí Phèo, or our lesson "The A Phủ’s " when you acted out Mrs. Mị. You imprinted on my mind ardent affection when you read the poems of Xuân Diệu, Hàn Mặc Tử, or Nguyễn Bính. Literature is very different to me now. It is no more the arduous and obligatory specialized subject. You have paddled the canoe, taking us along the infinite length of the river of literature, letting its lucid current scrub our naive soul. You brought us genuine literature, nourishing our souls day by day.

People say that I was lucky to have won a prize in the City Competition, to have been qualified for the City Team, but I do not see them as merely serendipitous. I was most lucky when I received your revisions and remarks only half an hour after I had sent you my essay, even though it was already midnight.  I was most lucky when you admonished me for my procrastination. I was most lucky when I read literary feedbacks from you, even your mild criticisms for my clumsy sentences. What I count myself lucky for is, in the midst of a society where people rush after superficial values, I am being guided by a person who lives with and passes on the fire of real values. After the Competition, we, the students of the selected team, confided with each other: "There can be no other you in our life."

The adage "Fairies can be bought with enough money" never applies to a single page of the literature you present us. What you give us is more than literature. You have endowed us with the love and passion of a mother; those are priceless -  they cannot be equated with money. Our hearts, our souls are still innocent and childish, but your love and tolerance have warmed them with  pulsating sentiments. Till the end of our lives, those pulses of the heart will accompany us.

On Vietnamese Teachers' Day, I pen these lines for you as a tribute to not only a teacher, but a mother. What you confer on us cannot be expressed via these few lines. But life is long: I will spend the mature part of my life on fervent endeavors, returning the sky and sea of love that you reserve for us with my life achievements. It would be inappropriate to compare my tender affection to your big, big heart, but I know one thing to be true: my love for literature today is the very love I have for you, accumulating day by day. And you know, my beloved teacher, literature is the spring of my life...

Author: Nguyễn Trần Hoàng Anh – Literature 1316

Translator: Nguyen Tien Thanh - A1 1316