Sometimes, having a toilet is happiness

Have you ever imagined that even a bathroom could bring happiness to a family?

If not, stay with me today until the end of my family’s story.

Perhaps by then, you’ll understand why there are such ordinary things that, while we have them, we never think of as happiness.

Until one day, we can no longer use them freely.

That day, my mother-in-law scolded me.

She said it hurt her to see her daughter straining to carry me into the bathroom every time.

She never wanted to see that happen again.

I sat in my wheelchair and listened in silence.

I remember feeling deeply sad.

Not just because of what she said.

But because a bathroom is supposed to be a person’s most private space, yet for me, it was a place where I had to rely on someone else’s help.

She said:

“Whatever happens to you is your business. I don’t care. But Bi is my daughter, and it hurts me to see her like this. Go home and ask your parents and siblings to come here and alter the bathroom so you can use it yourself. Don’t let your wife carry you anymore. I don’t want that.”

I listened and understood what lay beneath her words.

Perhaps she wanted the two of us to separate.

There was some bitterness in my heart, but I didn’t blame her.

I truly didn’t.

Because if my own daughter someday had to shoulder more than she could bear for someone else, I think I, as her father, would be heartbroken too.

That night, after everyone had gone to sleep, I lay alone in the dark room.

There are nights when you don’t need anyone to say anything more.

You only need to lie still.

The words from that afternoon kept coming back of their own accord.

I thought about the bathroom.

About my wife.

About Bánh Mì.

About our future together.

And for the first time, I saw clearly something I had perhaps been trying to avoid for a long time.

Life doesn’t always need a great upheaval to wear us down.

It can happen through the smallest things.

My wife’s breath coming hard as she tried to lift me.

Having to ask someone else to help with something so private.

One day.

Then another.

Until, at some point, you begin to fear you are becoming a burden to the very person you love.

I thought a great deal about myself that night.

I had once thought of myself as someone who could take care of his own life.

I had worked, started businesses, failed, and begun again.

There were years when I carried an entire company on my shoulders, worrying about work, about incomes, about the livelihoods of so many people.

I had worked alongside others on projects to help people in difficult circumstances.

I had thought that as long as I still had the strength and the means, I would try to do a little more, to help one more person.

I was used to being the one who stepped forward to look after others.

And yet that day, I lay in a dark room thinking about how I couldn’t get into the bathroom by myself.

The thought brought a sting of tears.

There is a certain irony in life that I only came to understand much later.

You may once have carried so many people, but there will come times when you have to learn to let others carry you.

And perhaps the hardest part is not being helped.

It is learning to accept that there are times when you need help too.

The next morning, my wife and I sat down to talk.

Neither of us blamed her mother.

Neither of us mentioned separating.

My wife said:

“You need to go back to Củ Chi and ask your parents to come down and help us alter the bathroom.”

I sat quietly.

She went on:

“Because I love you. One day my parents will be gone, and so will yours. Bánh Mì will grow up and have a life of her own. It will just be the two of us beside each other.”

I looked at her, then at Bánh Mì playing nearby.

I thought of a day when our parents would no longer be here, when Bánh Mì would have grown up and have a life of her own.

Then, in this house, the person beside me every day would still be my wife.

And that meant there were things I had to face for myself today.

She told me her legs had become much weaker after giving birth to Bánh Mì.

She was afraid that one day she would no longer have the strength to carry me.

Then she said:

“You need to set aside your wounded pride and your own pain so we can deal with what’s urgent for us right now.”

“My mother’s words were harsh, but she is my mother. Our mother.”

“She has reason to say what she did. And this is a limitation you have to accept.”

I knew those words were not easy to hear.

But they were true.

There are limitations we don’t choose.

But once they are there, we have to learn to live with them without letting them decide our whole lives.

I couldn’t fix my legs.

But I could fix the bathroom.

At noon that day, I went back to Củ Chi to see my parents.

I told them everything.

I had thought they might be upset, might reproach me, or ask why things had come to this.

But they didn’t.

They listened, and then they cried.

I didn’t know what to say either.

I just sat there looking at them.

My mother wiped away her tears and said:

“Go back to Sài Gòn and look after your wife and child. Don’t worry. Sometime next week, we’ll arrange to come down and help alter the bathroom so it’s easier for you to use.”

Then she said:

“That’s life, son. There’s no need to be sad. As long as your wife loves you and Bánh Mì is healthy, your father and I will do everything we can.”

After hearing that, I returned to Sài Gòn.

On the way back, I kept thinking about my parents’ words.

I couldn’t understand why something as small as fixing a bathroom had stirred so much inside me.

Tenderness.

Sadness for myself.

Gratitude.

And a little shame, too.

Shame that I had once thought I had to be the one who could take care of everyone.

When, even now, my parents still had to take care of me.

After that, my parents came down.

The bathroom was altered.

It was nothing grand.

Just one part of the house redone to make things easier for me.

But to me, it was no longer just a bathroom.

It was a reminder.

That my body had limitations I could not change.

That my wife had her own limitations too.

That our parents would grow old.

That Bánh Mì would grow up.

And that in a family, sometimes when one person grows tired, another takes a little of the weight.

Today I need my wife.

Tomorrow she may need me.

Sometimes the two of us need our parents.

Then a day will come when our parents are no longer there for us to turn to.

And life goes on like that.

I used to think happiness had to be something bigger.

A good job.

A house.

A car.

Some kind of achievement.

But the more I go through, the more I see that happiness sometimes lies in none of those things.

Sometimes happiness is simply having my wife still beside me.

My child still healthy.

Our parents still here.

And still having a way to make life a little lighter for the people I love.

A bathroom.

A door.

A handhold.

Enough space to turn around on my own.

Things so ordinary that we rarely think about them.

Until one day, we no longer have them in the way other people do.

Only then do we understand.

Sometimes, having a bathroom is happiness too.

And perhaps happiness isn’t always about having something more.

Sometimes happiness is still having someone to love.

Still having someone who loves me.

Still having parents to go home to.

Still having a child who calls me Dad.

And still having a wife sitting beside me, thinking together about what we need to do tomorrow.

I don’t know what other limitations life ahead will bring.

There will certainly be more.

But whatever we can fix today, let’s fix it.

Whatever we can work through together, let’s work through it together.

As long as we can love each other, let’s keep loving.

Because in the end, perhaps peace is not a life without things that hurt us.

It is still having someone beside us, amid all we cannot change, to find another way to live together.

And sometimes, a place of peace is not far away at all.

It begins with a bathroom.