Divine Love – Life Love – Human Love: My Mother Is My Aunt-In-Law

By Thanh Tran

Divine Love Life Love Human Love: My Mother Is My Aunt-in-Law is a practical, social, pastoral, spiritual, and theological novel. It is about the story of a girl who was brought up by her foster mother. She did not know that her foster mother was not her natural mother until the mother had passed away, because she had always loved and cared for her wholeheartedly, tenderly, and sincerely. From a girl who did not have much faith in God, the daughter had changed unbelievably to have strong faith in the Creator and to be willing and desiring to serve people around her. She decided to give her life to God by entering a convent to become a nun, and she also remained serving people tirelessly in her vocation as a doctor. The conversion of her life happened through the way she felt and understood the wonderful love of her foster and natural mothers for her and the unconditional love of God for her and for humanity. Through this story, the author wishes that the readers may be moved and begin to think about the grace and love of God for them and for the whole human race. He wants all people to slow down the ways they live their lives and learn to feel more, to feel more about others, about themselves, about life, about the meaning of their existence and living, and especially to feel more about Gods love for them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781973602385

Thanh Tran

Father Thanh Tran is Catholic priest, living and serving in the Diocese of Christchurch in New Zealand. He was born and grew up in a Catholic village in the middle part of Vietnam. While studying to become a politician in Sài Gòn, the biggest city in Vietnam, he was touched by the grace of God and decided to come to New Zealand for the priesthood. He first stepped on this land in July, 2008 with the assets of about ten words of English. Life was so challenging for this young man. It was very hard to learn the language. His health started to become poor. He faced a lot of culture shocks. He was homesick too. Nevertheless, with the grace of God and the love, support, care and prayers from the people whom he has met, his journey in New Zealand has been marvellous though there have been a lot of challenges and hardships on the way. He believes that it was a miracle the Lord had done for him when He chose him to be a priest of his holy people. He keeps reminding himself that “nothing is impossible for God,” especially when he faces hardships and difficulties. He has been serving in his first parish as an assistant priest for one year. It has been a wonderful time for him. He feels blessed, privileged and happy with the vocation he is living.

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Copyright © 2017 Thanh Tran.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

WestBow Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-0239-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-0238-5 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 9/29/2017

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

HEARTFELT WORDS FROM THE AUTHOUR

INTRODUCTION

I      LOVELY CHILDHOOD IN HƯỚNG PHƯƠNG

II     THE FATEFUL DAY HAPPENING TO HER FAMILY

III   HER MARRIAGE

The lofty and romantic love of two young people

The objection from the bridegroom’s mother and their marriage

Life at Pasture Street

IV   HOLIDAY IN ĐÀ LẠT AND THE UNBEARABLE PAIN

Chapter 1   THE SADNESS OF A CHILD   WHO IS FATHERLESS

The great love of a single Mum

My first days at school and the beautiful   months and years at my second home

The inferiority complex at school about   not having a Father

The desire of having a Father and receiving his love

Chapter 2   BECOMING FURTHER AWAY   FROM MY MOTHER

Influenced by new friends and becoming close to Grandmother and aunt Jasmine

Losing respect toward Mum and   becoming rude and glacial to her

Chapter 3   THE ACCIDENT

Having the accident

I wanted to commit suicide

Mum was blamed

Chapter 4   OVERCOMING THE DIFFICULTIES, INFERIORITY COMPLEX AND ACHIEVING THE SCHOLARSHIP

Being kindly and wholeheartedly cared for by Mum

Mum encouraged me to be strong and optimistic

I was determined to study hard to make my Mum feel happy and to be able to return her favour, sacrifices and love for me

Making a lot of effort

Receiving the scholarship and going to America to study

Chapter 5   MUM GOT CANCER

My mother overloaded herself

Mum tried to conceal her sickness from everyone

She was told she had two months to live

Chapter 6   MUM PASSED AWAY AND THE LATE RETURN FROM HER DAUGHTER

The death of my Mum

The unlimited sadness and the regret from   my Grandmother and aunt Jasmine

I missed my Mother terribly

Chapter 7   THE TRUTH EVENTUALLY TOLD

Two best Friends became two Sisters-in-law

Happy holiday in Đà Lạt

The fateful and miserable day came

The promise and the sacrifice

Being kicked out of Grandmother’s home

A woman with a big heart, always   benevolent and gracious

Chapter 8   THE LETTER FROM MUM

The trial from God

Living in pain, Mum missed her natural Daughter

Learning and making efforts to accept the reality

I love you more than myself and I am always proud of you

The two most wonderful Mothers in the world

Chapter 9   SELF-PROMISE OF BEING A GOOD DOCTOR AND A HELPFUL PERSON

PEACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Sitting here, thinking of my first book Divine Love – Life Love – Human Love: My Mother Is My Aunt-In-Law, which is going to be published by WestBow Press, I feel so excited and grateful. I am so thankful to the Lord for all the blessings he has bestowed upon me, especially for calling me to be a priest of his people, though I know that I am weak, lowly, vulnerable and not worthy of this privilege. Without God’s grace, I would not be who I am today and of course this book would not be written.

I am grateful to my parents, grandparents, siblings, extended family, home village Hướng Phương and fatherland Vietnam for giving birth to me, for giving me the precious faith in God, for loving me and bringing me up the way I am and for innumerable and beautiful memories I have shared there. My aspiration to write this book came from the memories I had experienced in this lovely country and with these gorgeous people.

I am thankful to New Zealand, especially to the Diocese of Christchurch for inviting me to come here to study for the priesthood, for accepting me as a member of the Diocese and for always loving and supporting me. Owing to their kindness, I now can write and speak in English and this was the potential for me to write the book.

I am grateful to all my friends, old and new, far and near, for always encouraging, loving and praying and caring for me. You are all part of this book too.

I am really thankful to Sister Joan Parker for editing the book for me. Without your hard work, this book would never be the way it is.

HEARTFELT WORDS FROM THE AUTHOUR

The world we are living in is a diversified and multicoloured world which is always undergoing change. In this world, we are like specks of dust, always thinking, being concerned, wondering and worrying about our fate, our life and ourselves. We unfailingly dream more, want to do more, earn more and then accumulate more to attain a pleasant life. We may desire to be loved, to be respected, to be cared for, to be protected and to be given things by other people. Nevertheless, we perhaps forget one vital thing, that is, besides longing to receive things from people, we need to learn to generously share with them what we have. We ought to give things to others, especially those who are in need, because to live is to give and not only to receive!

Everything in life originates from the word love and when we give things to people it means that we express our love for them. There is a theory in life with which everyone agrees. It is that a shared firelight is a pervasive flame; a traded coin is a profitable one; the lips have to be parted if they want to receive smiles; and our hearts can only be filled with joy if we have wide-open hands and always want to give.

When we give something to someone, we receive something back from them. It can be something simple but enough to make us joyful, such as a grateful look, a lovely gesture, a prayer or a thankful word from them. Through giving we receive love from others, and through giving we give joy to ourselves. By giving things to others and helping them, we get to know how blessed we are and also we may come to understand the real value of life and things around us.

Yes, as humans, we should love, help, respect, support, share and care for each other. We should not hate and despise one another. We ought to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. Painfully, humans seemingly have lost the way to lead a beautiful, free and meaningful life. Greed itself has poisoned humans’ souls. Greed has barricaded the world with hate. It has pushed people into misery and bloodshed. Many people have become unnatural people. They have forgotten that they have the love of humanity in their hearts. They have forgotten how to love and what love is. They always think about themselves rather than about others before doing something. They worry and attach exaggerated importance to their companies, their factories and themselves instead of thinking of and caring for other people’s health and bread. They find their profit on other people’s pain and suffering. They do not care about the environment and they are destroying the surroundings, the sea and the world. They are ready to step on others’ bodies, including their loved ones and some are even ready to kill others to get money and possessions from them. Because they have become machine people with machine minds and machine hearts, they never care about others’ freedom, human rights and lives. Sadly, their hearts have become emotionless and indifferent while their consciences have become eroded and stony. Truly, in different ways, the society is losing the human love. Many people do not treat each other by human love but by ruthlessness, cunning and trickery. People can be very cruel and hard-hearted to one another. It seems that because of the selfishness and greed of some people, others are suffering grievously.

Obviously, there are so many problems existing in our world. One of the most painful wounds in our society is loneliness. A lot of people are feeling lonely around us whether we have noticed that or not. Moreover, life seems to be unfair for some. Some people are living in the love, care and protection of their parents but they do not recognise how blessed they are and they never treasure this. Whereas, some others wish to be in the loving arms of their parents, even just for an hour or one minute, but their desire can never be fulfilled though it seems very simple.

This world also contains innumerable incomprehensible and unfathomable things. One of the most wonderful gifts humans have received is parental love. Parents’ love for their children is immense. It is really heaven-high and earth-thick. Their love for their children is a lofty and unconditional love. However, sometimes children can be mean and selfish to their parents. Frankly, we, who are children, often take things for granted. One mother can feed, nourish and bring up ten children lovingly but it is hardly probable that ten children can look after a mother. For parents, it is never a problem how long their children live with them. Yet, for children, when their parents stay with them for one month or several weeks, they often feel that it is long enough or too long already. Parents’ house is always the house of their children. However, children’s house is unlikely to be the house of their parents. Parents feed children for their whole lives without counting the cost. Nonetheless, children often weigh the pros and cons when they take care of their parents.

Among the noise, the busyness, the hastiness and craziness of life, we may say that life love and human love cling to each other in a relationship which cannot be fathomed at times. All people should be one at the wellspring of pain and joy, nevertheless. We all need to learn to treasure whatever we have and receive and accept the things we are given by life because this is the gateway into the fullness of life. When we are pleased with life, we will be happy to love and serve others and we will be able to realise, feel and clearly see the blessedness we receive from God. This life is temporary and it will go by. The life we are living is just a preparation for our death and for our eternal life in heaven. The story below holds various tones of feelings and emotions of ordinary people in everyday life with much love, joy and laughter they share but also not lacking in pain, blood, tears and suffering they experience.

Hopefully, the readers will enjoy reading this simple book. People today tend to think too much and feel too little. May we slow down our lives and learn to feel more, to feel more about life, to feel more about ourselves, to feel more about others and to feel more with them and for them. May we be able to know to treasure what we have in life and may we understand more about the meaning of life and try to become better people and lead a more beautiful and meaningful life by loving, serving, giving, sharing, protecting, forgiving and caring for one another. Thank you very much for your time, love, interest and support.

INTRODUCTION

As a child, I learnt to know that I did not have a father. My father died in an accident with his sister, together with her husband and daughter when I was about two months old. My mother and I were also in that building with them when the conflagration happened but we were very fortunate to survive.

I grew up in the love of my mum although my heart always felt hungry for the love and affection of a father. Mum and I lived in a house with bad condition. She was a mathematics teacher at high school. However, she also had many other jobs. She normally got up at three thirty or four o’clock in the morning and made steamed thin rice pancakes as consignments for people who had shops at the market. In the evening she gave private tuitions to about 20 students with three different classes. Mum also often helped me with my homework. At the weekend, she would