On a harrowing morning in 1949, my great-grandmother returned home early from work, frazzled, tattered, and exhausted.  The French-controlled government soldiers had been ambushed by the Communist troops at the food market where she and other merchants were conducting their daily business, trying to make ends meet.

The innocent bystanders had to drop what measly livelihoods they had to run for their lives. Just another day in the lives of the collateral damages of war. That night, my great-grandmother wailed out the most anguished, hysterical cry that anyone, including her shaken children, had ever heard from this woman who had always been a stoic rock.

Prior to this day, she had survived and rebuilt from other tragedies with dignified composure.  She had been self-sufficient from the age of 15, supporting her family as a merchant while teaching herself classic Vietnamese literature and Eastern medicine. 

She had recently buried her husband, who died at end of a cold bullet from French colonizers. She had lost her home and business multiple times in the indiscriminate crossfire of battles. After all that, she still managed to guide her children out of an advancing war zone, time after time.

But that night, all she could do was cry forsaken tears to a silent void. And all her children could do, was hug and cry with her.  The following morning,  like nothing ever happened, she woke up and continued her work as usual. And so went on another day for the collateral damages of war.