Our generation is a strange generation – children who grew up in the subsidy period and matured in the years of renovation, and then are about to become the “old” people who are indifferent to modern life. Everyone’s life goes through ups and downs, so maybe an elevator is enough to make us feel nostalgic. It’s also funny to think.

Suddenly remembering the old days…

“Remember that year two babies

Tired of counting the steps up, fell, head swelled up

…

Thirteen stairs to next year

Mom is going to pick me up and fix it

For closer than the night shift I work

The sound of the clogs on the night closed the door”(*)

There was a time when she was a little girl hanging around the apartment stairs with her honeycomb sandals, busy playing the game of counting stairs and never getting bored, until her mother called for dinner, she ran upstairs to the house, still panting. Once witnessed that the corner of the stairs was the dating place of many young people…

After that, the scene in the apartment building ended, and the stairs were still present in the house. Stairs no longer have to be shared and no longer jump and count each step as before. The stairs at that time were the days of helping her grandmother up and down with a cane, a familiar way to support her wife when she was nine months and ten days pregnant with fear of falling. Like that, it is familiar and forever attached in memory from childhood to adulthood. Therefore, the nostalgia for the stairs is also as a matter of course of people like us

But then everyone has to grow up, and everything has to “grow up”.

Even if we want to savor beautiful memories, want to keep the small corner of the stairs forever when the surrounding life changes dramatically, but if we just hang around there forever – how can we “grow up” to watch your children grow up?

Sometimes in a modern apartment, there is no longer the old fun scene, leaving the stairs in a sad place, maybe just a few brooding smokers or visiting. I also felt sad, but then suddenly thought: if there was no elevator, how could I climb dozens of floors, the apartment now doesn’t have to be every few floors like before. Office staff see more clearly the benefits of elevators every time they race against time and working hours.

While now the speed of development is rapid, the world is still reeling with the 4.0 revolution, but we want to keep walking slowly step by step on the stairs, when will we never be out of date, when will we catch up with the modern world?

In the end, not only the apartment changed, even the private house itself changed. Being able to build a new house, I also want to install a home lift. Remember the old days when it was difficult for my grandmother to go up and down the stairs, so she had to stay on a low floor, easy to get cold. Now, it is heartwarming to see my mother easily go up and down the floors, then ten years later after the knees have sagged, her legs are tired and has to rely on the elevator.

Then, the children also get married, and a little more have grandchildren to carry. Sometimes when I think about it, I see how much more comfortable the house is with an elevator: My house is more beautiful – more safe, going up and downstair on Anniversaries and ancestor – worshipping days is no longer a torture.

The stairs are also not in the past but are always there, continuing what has always been a duty and filled with memories of emotional years. But instead of being alone like in the past, the old man now has an elevator to keep him company. Each of which has strengths and weaknesses, and the other person with strengths, dedicate themselves to giving their best support to the owner.

I step into the elevator and think about the stairs and smile as I remember the past and rejoice in the present

Those who want to get used to it, first to be strange, just change to “grow up” without “growing down” and to progress without being behind

*Excerpt from the poem “Thirteen Stairs” – Vu Dinh Van

Duc Hoang