Nhan practises with his artificial leg, He doesn't like
using it and his mother doesn't force him because she doesn't want
him to hate the leg and his disability.
Caring for a physically disabled child has won his adoptive
mother accolades and given the boy a great start in life.
Hoang Hong reports.
"How are you today?" three-year-old boy Phung
Thien Nhan asks his adoptive mother everyday after she returns from
work. If his mother has energy left she will play with her son, if
not she lies down to rest.
Nhan's life hasn't been easy. He was found 72
hours after being abandoned in a garden in 2008. The critically
injured newborn was rushed more than 100km to a hospital in Quang
Nam Province. Doctors managed to save his life, but not his right
leg or his genitals.
After he recovered, Nhan was adopted by Tran Mai
Anh and her husband, Phung Quang Nghinh, a young Hanoian couple who
already had two boys.
Anh has taken Nhan to 14 hospitals in Thailand,
Singapore and the US to be treated by some of the top physicians in
the world.
For her intrepid efforts, Mai Anh was honoured as
one of the first 11 distinguished Hanoian citizens to be recognised
this year on the occasion of the 1,000th anniversary of Thang
Long-Ha Noi.
Mai Anh begins every day by waking up her
children and urging them to wash their faces, brush their teeth and
helps them dress. While they are washing, she prepares breakfast
for them. After breakfast, she takes her sons to school. After
work, she picks them up and then goes back home to cook her family
dinner. After eating, she plays with them for an hour, puts them to
bed and then reads a book until midnight.
As the main editor for Heritage and Heritage
Fashion magazines, Mai Anh looks too small to carry out such
mammoth tasks.
Nhan says that he likes playing with his mother
the most. He enjoys "brooding", in which Nhan and his brothers Hai
and Minh huddle together under a blanket while his mother sits
above them and says "give an egg, give an egg..."
Nhan says he likes his mother to bath him because
she lets him splash the water and tells funny stories.
Mai Anh says she always works hard to ensure that
her boys have a peaceful life.
"Nhan once asked his brothers a riddle: ‘What has
four legs, but is always hiding one leg?' No one was able to solve
the riddle. Nhan said with delight, ‘It is Thien Nhan!'"
"His answer made many of the adults in our family
cry, but I wasn't worried because I know that Nhan has accepted his
condition," says Mai Anh.
Nhan does not like using his artificial leg and
Anh doesn't force him to use it. She worries that if she forces him
to wear it then he will begin to hate the leg and his disability.
"When a person hates themselves, it is difficult to help them. If
someone has a health problem, it can be treated with medicine,"
says Anh. "But psychological trauma may be more difficult to
treat."
In the last three years, Anh has taken Nhan
around the world to see the best doctors to help treat his
disability and improve his physical mobility.
"Many people think that I am demanding
perfection, but I don't think I am," says Mai Anh. "He is my son,
not just some boy that I am helping. As a mother, I always want to
do what's best for my son."
Anh says that she was honoured to receive the
State President's letter of merit and the Distinguished Citizen's
award for charity.
"I never think of what I do as charity," says Mai
Anh. "I am lucky enough to have a son who is very intelligent and
lovely, that's what matters."
Anh is the youngest person to receive the award,
which is usually reserved for politicians, historians, and
engineers.
Anh's work has inspired her community and moved
people across the country to reach out and help children that are
in need. — VNS