thương: i love you enough to not say so
there are so many ways for my mother to tell me she loves me, and the one she chooses to say is: ”mẹ thương con”. mom loves you, her daughter.
see, the direct translation for “love” into vietnamese splits between two words. thương and yêu. if you asked me to tell you, well, which is the most proper one to use?, i’d stop for a bit.
yêu is “love”. pure love, actually. the dopamine-rush kind. the one you acquire, the type that you find. it’s the love you look for and stumble across. yêu is dinner dates after two years. yêu is what you work to keep. it’s after blood, after sweat, after tears. yêu is what you build.
but thương is different. it’s less direct. it’s i love you, without saying so exactly, but rather, i feel so.
my mother tells me ”mẹ thương con” and never ”mẹ yêu con.” thương is love, but with responsibility. thương is less passionate than yêu, lacks the fervor, but rather, it’s the feeling. it’s the sentiment. thương is i love you because i must, i love you because i always will, i loved you before you saw dawn, and i will love you after you are long gone. thương is for a lifetime, not because i found you, but because i love you. why? because i simply do. i love you for eternity and i did not choose to do so. i simply always will.
thương. i love you enough to not say i chose to. i love you enough to not say so.