The Sweet Orange Tree Rooted in our Hearts

I’ve just returned from a trip to Huế with my best friend. She lives in Australia and had not been back to Vietnam in eight years. When we were 27, we traveled to Phú Quốc together — swimming in the sea during the day, drinking ourselves senseless at night. One evening, we stayed out until 3 a.m., too drunk to find the hotel entrance, and ended up renting a room across the street just to sleep. Though in truth, we barely slept at all; instead, we held each other and cried. This time, at 35, we returned to our room before 10 every night, curled up under blankets with books, spent our days visiting royal tombs and pagodas, soaking in jacuzzis to unwind. It was not my first time in Huế, but it was the first time I truly felt its beauty unfolding slowly, in rhythm with something deep inside me.

We also lingered for hours in a tiny teahouse, savoring Hoàng Mai tea — a fragrant blend made from ancient shan tuyết tea leaves from Hà Giang infused with Huế’s golden apricot blossoms. Finding a kindred spirit with whom you can quietly share eight or ten rounds of tea is rare. This time, we did not cry. We simply felt at peace, because after everything, the present had become the gentlest answer to the past.

During the trip, I found myself thinking back to my student years — that season of life when hope seemed endless. At the time, heartbreak felt like the worst suffering imaginable. I believed I would never love again, yet not long after, I met the love of my life and eventually married him. I had once lost hope, but my husband gave it back to me.

Once, I told an older friend that as we grow up, heartbreak no longer feels like the end of the world, because there are harsher pains waiting beyond it. She replied, “Pain cuts just as deeply at any age.” Later, she went through a devastating midlife crisis: a divorce, a failed business, and then the pandemic struck. A woman who had always seemed unshakable suddenly wanted to let go of everything. The only thing that kept her moving forward was the hope that life could still get better.

As for me, after that chapter of being “heartbroken over love,” I gradually built a life that felt stable and gentle. But then death arrived in waves: both of my grandmothers, a longtime friend, an assistant who had been with me for ten years, and the dog I dearly loved. Each one left without warning.

In theory, we all know we must accept death. I used to think of it simply, the way a flower blooms and withers, a cloud turns into rain and disappears, or a school of salmon migrates back upstream to reproduce and die where it was born. But when loss came again and again, I truly lost hope. I began to think: if we all die in the end, why struggle so hard to hold on to this life?

I cried endlessly. Even with my husband beside me, sharing the burden, I still could not pull myself through it. And I realized that the price of growing up is losing the ability to separate joy from sorrow. I still feel happiness in small things — seeing a girl asleep on her lover’s back, hearing a beautiful song, learning that someone has finally achieved what they longed for… Yet grief continues to seep in. This time, I understood that the person who must restore hope to me is myself.

Everyone Drops Hope at Some Point

“There are days when hope falls away” is the opening recipe in Gong Ji-young’s Recipes to Give to My Daughter. A mother comforts her child with quiet empathy, reminding her that everyone experiences days when “every door of hope slams shut before them,” before gently teaching her how to make spinach salad, sprinkling cheese until the frustration slowly dissolves.

While trying to find hope again, I found comfort in cooking. I would smile whenever I thought of that book, and of my mother. Every mother has her own way of teaching life’s deepest philosophies through ordinary rituals: going for a run, cooking a meal, soaking in warm water, applying essential oils, writing in a journal. These simple acts have a way of soothing the spirit.

I also thought about Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz. He believed that human beings can endure almost any suffering if they can find meaning in their lives. Even in the harshest circumstances, the one thing no one can take away is the inner freedom to choose one’s attitude toward pain. For Frankl, memories of his wife became a source of spiritual strength, helping him remain standing in the face of unimaginable loss.

Reading those pages, I realized that suffering and hopelessness are profoundly human states. But no pain is absolute, and no hope is ever lost forever. Even in the deepest darkness, hope remains a spiritual anchor — the one light we can still choose to hold on to.

Do you remember little Zezé in My Sweet Orange Tree? A poor, mischievous yet sensitive child who found in a tiny orange tree a confidant and companion. To Zezé, the tree was not merely a plaything or a patch of shade, but a refuge for childhood sadness and dreams. It became a symbol of imaginary friendship, of the comfort a tender soul longs for amid the harshness of life.

Hope, then, does not necessarily come from external reality. It can be nurtured by an image, a memory, a love carefully kept in the heart. Each of us has had our own “sweet orange tree,” lovingly named and cherished with all the tenderness we could give. And even though we know we must one day part ways with those innocent skies of childhood, their sweetness remains tucked away somewhere in the heart — proof that hope never truly disappears.

Originally published in ELLE Magazine