The Mother Who Chose Love

September 1994. A sharp crack—the radio buzzed, shattering the afternoon quiet, breaking the stillness like a sudden bolt of electricity. I was just 14 years old, sitting on the floor in a traditional Asian squat at my family home in Phan Thiet, Vietnam, carefully cleaning morning glory—long green stems with hollow interiors and tender, arrow-shaped leaves. My fingers moved methodically, stripping away wilted leaves and snapping each stem into bite-sized pieces, preparing the familiar vegetable for dinner. The radio hummed with static before the voice of an American soldier came through—his words foreign and strange, yet heavy with emotion. He was searching for a woman he called his mother.

Her name was “Mẹ Cơ.” Not her birth name, but the affectionate title everyone used—‘Mẹ’ means Mother, and ‘Cơ’ her given name.

He had come to Vietnam, to my hometown, in search of her. But everything had changed since 1972. The road, the houses, even the people—he could no longer find the place he once knew. It was the first time since the war that Vietnam had opened its doors to American visitors, and I couldn’t understand why this man, with “his blonde hair and blue eyes,” as the radio host described him, was calling an old Vietnamese woman “mother.”

We were taught in school that “Đế Quốc Mỹ là xấu”—Imperialist America is bad. But this man’s voice, shaking on the radio, made me wonder if there was more to the story than what we were told.

For three weeks, I listened to it every day, waiting for news, while helping my grandmother prepare a meal Then one afternoon, the radio host announced that someone had found Mẹ Cơ.

The soldier rushed to her house, but when he arrived, all he saw was an altar. A single framed picture of an old woman stared back at him. She was gone. My heart felt heavy, I moved closer to the radio.

He fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. “Mẹ ơi, con về trễ rồi”—“Mother, I came back too late!”

I imagined the scene as the host described it. The soldier saw a small plate in front of the altar, and inside was a ring. He picked it up, turning it over in his fingers, his breath hitching. It was his. His name and his wife’s name were engraved on the inside.

Turning to the woman who now lived in the house, he asked for a hug. Without hesitation, she embraced him, and they both cried.

Mẹ Cơ had been a single mother. Her husband had died in the First Indochina War in 1954, leaving her to raise five children—four sons and a daughter. One by one, her sons joined the war, fighting as Viet Cong soldiers. Three never came home. The last one was still somewhere in the jungle, and Mẹ Cơ was left alone with her young daughter.

Back in 1972, her daughter was studying in town and couldn’t safely travel back home due to the constant threat of the war, leaving Mẹ Cơ to live alone.

One evening, she found an American soldier crawling into her yard, bleeding heavily from a wound in his leg. He was barely conscious, his body shaking with pain. She froze.

He was the enemy, the reason her sons had died.

She could have turned him in and reported him to the Viet Cong soldiers who patrolled the village.

But when she looked into his face, she didn’t see an enemy. She saw someone’s son. A young man, no older than her own children, afraid and in pain.

Her heart clenched, but she hid him. She moved him into the rice warehouse, cleaned his wounds, and wiped away his blood where he had crawled. That night, the Viet Cong came through the village, asking about an American soldier. She stayed silent.

The next day, she intentionally cut her own hand, making the wound deep enough to need medicine. This gave her an excuse to visit the doctor, where she secretly gathered the medical supplies she needed to treat him. She nursed him back to health in secret for two weeks, risking her life every day.

When he could finally walk again, she disguised him in her son’s old clothes. Wrapping a scarf around his face, she led him through the village, pretending he was her nephew as she walked toward town. When they reached the edge of the safety area, she pointed him toward the American base.

Before he left, he took off his ring, smooth and still warm, and placed it in her hands.

“To remember me.”

Then, with tears in his eyes, he hugged her tightly one last time.

He never forgot her. Time went by, the American government had an oppressive embargo against Vietnam making it unsafe to travel but decades later, when it was finally safe to return, he found her too late; instead, he found her daughter.

Holding her hands, he said, “Mẹ Cơ saved my life. She was my mother. And you—you are her daughter. That makes you my sister.”

The daughter told him that her last brother had died in 1975. Her mother had lived the rest of her life alone, missing her children and holding onto the memories of war.

And the ring, she had never sold it. She never lost it.

“It was a piece of a life she saved. A reminder of love, even in war.” I sat there, listening to the radio, my heart full.

I had learned about the war in school, but I had never learned about this love, about compassion, about forgiveness. Mẹ Cơ had lost her own children to war, yet she had still saved the life of a soldier—one who had fought on the other side. She had looked past politics, past hatred, past grief. She had simply seen a person in need.

That day, I realized that war does not make people enemies. It is fear, pain, and loss that divide us. But kindness—kindness has the power to bring us back together.

Sometimes, when we talk about war, we focus on the bombs and the bullets, on everything that’s been destroyed or lost. But what resonates with me most in Mẹ Cơ’s story isn’t the violence. It’s the warmth of her heart— the way she chose compassion over anger at a moment when most people would have chosen otherwise.

I grew up understanding that Vietnamese mothers embody a special kind of love: it’s patient, unwavering, and, most of all, boundless. Even though Mẹ Cơ had every reason to hate the soldier—she saw past the uniform—past the tragedy of her own sons. She recognized a human being in pain. In that instant, she was not thinking of sides or politics; she was simply a mother who saw someone’s child in need of help.

That choice to show mercy rather than vengeance taught me something profound: forgiveness isn’t about forgetting what happened; it’s about refusing to let bitterness define us. We can acknowledge the wounds inflicted by war while still reaching out with kindness. Mẹ Cơ lost her sons, but she saved another mother’s son. In doing so, she proved that even in the midst of unimaginable hardship, our capacity for empathy can overcome our fears and our anger.

This story reminds me of the quiet strength many Vietnamese mothers hold in their hearts: an instinct to protect and nurture life, regardless of who stands before them. It shows how a single act of compassion can bridge the gap between enemies, turning them into family, even if only briefly.

That is what I carry with me: the knowledge that a mother’s love transcends borders, ideologies, and resentments. Rather than dwelling on the violence of war, Mẹ Cơ chose love—a love that says, “Yes, we have suffered, but we will not pass on the suffering.” I will never forget her story, because it urges us to see beyond labels of “enemy” or “ally” and recognize the humanity underneath.

In a world that so often chooses war, may we learn to choose love.