His Hand

A taciturn man - big, strong, and who hardly shows his emotion - has the freedom like a gigantic bird that can fly to anywhere to do anything as if he was God himself. I know this man. He is my father.
Most of my childhood memories are about my father. My mother had been an extremely busy woman when I was a child; therefore, my father was the one who took care of me and held the responsibility. He was the one who filled my heart and built my mind. He was the spring in my little jar named Soul. My father was my whole world. I was always with him no matter where he went. We were always together, never separate from each other.
Once, when we went to the university, which was next to my house, I was separated from my father because I was attacked by the cows next to the road. When I noticed this, I thought I had been abandoned. My sadness was the shadow that soon filled my mind. I did not cry; I knew it was a useless action which could solve nothing but waste energy for living. A stranger noticed about me, he was trying to let me to go with him. I refused. I decided to trust my father. I wanted to believe in his love and that he would come for me and hold my hand once again. After the stranger walked away, I was extremely hungry with no difficulty I could eat a horse.
Bad enough, it started raining. I sat under the stairs and looked around for my father. The rain drops were dancing in the wind but did not wet me. Four hours pasted by until he found me. He was completely wet. I could see his skin though his cloth and the hot, red face of his that was under the wooden-black hair. He ran towards me. I was happy but sad. I was afraid he would renounce his love for me. I doubted if he even loved me.
Without saying anything, he hugged me, hard, tight. I could hardly breathe. I thought I was dying. I heard the sound of his deep voice in my ear. His face was wet, but not only because of the rain. I smiled, and told him that I did not feel like walking in the rain for fifty miles to our house alone, therefore, I decided to wait for him. He smiled bitterly, and took me home. On the way back, we were holding each other’s hand, tightly.
As years goes by, I still remember that rainy day with his deep voice, his wet, hot face, his arm, his thick chest that was against mine, his cold back as when I hugged him, the water that dropped on my shoulder from his hair, and the heavy beating of his heart. Those nine words he said to me have never been forgotten. Now, when I smile and look at him, I can recall the words on that rainy day that he murmured into my ear, “I love you. Please, never, never leave me again!”