I still remember that feeling on the airplane back home right at the time when people were preparing to welcome the new year. Though it was not the lunar new year, I still felt so eager.
My homeland was at the time just one hour away. But I was still so eager. Was it because of the melody of Going Home by Kenny G while people were rushing to the Sword Lake to say goodbye to the old year and welcome the first moments of the new year?
I stayed to read the story about a man named Tung, one among 183 workers who were flown back home by Vietnam Airlines from Equatorial Guinea. He was also among the 21 positive SARS-COVID 2 cases detected by medical clinics.
I tried to figure out the choking and worrying feeling and the simmering fever with the sore throat and the painful chest of the young man in the blue protection clothes on the chair protected by plastic. My heart throbbed when Tung said he was wide awake when the doctor announced that there would be three hours left before they arrived home. People told one another to be calm.
I could figure out the happy feeling when people shouted: “We’re home. We survive now!” and the loud cheering when the airplane landed on Noi Bai Airport at 15:20 on July 29th.
Tung was only one among hundreds of people who were taken home when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and left many aftershocks for people everywhere. While the whole world was slowing down, no one could anticipate anything about living and death, everyone had to desperately take care of themselves, hospitals were in crisis, Vietnamese planes flew across oceans to bring Vietnamese people home.
Perhaps not only Tung, but many others were sobbing on the rescue plane, just like the sobbing sounds of saxophone by Kenny G: “I'll cross the sea. / I'll cross the ocean./ I'll go home, forever / I'll go home ..."
It seems that difficulties, disasters, and epidemics make people live for each other. This can be seen from the story of Bui Minh Tung - the guy mentioned above. It can be seen from simple actions such as giving each other masks and dry hand sanitizer, contributing rice, food, and energy to the kitchens at isolation wards, boys’ and girls’ sleepless nights at the gateway to the city.
On Facebook, a friend of mine wrote about going home during the second wave of COVID-19. Another symbol of humanity is the fact that the government brought citizens home from abroad, from this city to another, and from this province to another.
I feel happy to live in my hometown. Thua Thien Hue is the first province that brought people home. Tears therefore no more shed on Hai Van Gate.
Story: Ngan Hanh