Cut your hand

I was sitting on the swing, about to pick up a knife to peel an apple, when I suddenly noticed a small scar on my finger, a mark from a careless accident when I was a child. I was only 5 or 6 years old then, and I'd heard my father repeatedly warn me, "Don't cut anything with a knife, or you'll cut yourself." But one day, the whole family went out to sell goods, and I was home craving an apple. Unable to resist, I took a knife and accidentally cut my finger. Blood gushed out, and in a panic, I ran to my neighbor's house to ask them to bandage the wound.

A little while later, my father came home. Seeing my finger only loosely bandaged, he carefully removed the bandage, wiped away the blood, applied medicine, and re-wrapped it securely. But instead of comforting me, he spanked me twice on the bottom, saying, "I'm spanking you to teach you a lesson, so you won't handle a knife on your own again next time."

I lay in bed, in pain from my wounds and resentful of being beaten, thinking to myself, "My hand is already bleeding and stinging, and my father still beat me."

Now that I'm grown up, I sit here, peeling an apple for my granddaughter. Looking at her beside me, I feel sorry for her. She just cut her hand and bled from peeling the apple herself, and she's received two light taps on the bottom, just like I did years ago. I suddenly wonder, "I wonder if she thinks the same way I did back then? Cutting her hand, bleeding, and hurting so much, and then getting spanked by her grandfather – would she understand?"

In that moment, I understood that sometimes old memories help us see things with a more mature and profound perspective...

NGUYEN THANH TAM

Source: https://baokhanhhoa.vn/van-hoa/sang-tac/202409/dut-tay-23017c5/