Cut hand

I was sitting on the swing, about to pick up a knife to peel an apple when I suddenly saw a small scar on my finger, a mark of a careless moment when I was a child. At that time, I was only 5 or 6 years old, and I heard my father's repeated warnings "don't cut anything with a knife, or you'll cut your hand". But one day, the whole family went to sell goods, and I was at home craving an apple. Unable to resist, I took a knife and accidentally cut my finger with the blade. Blood was flowing profusely, and in a panic, I rushed to my neighbor's house to ask them to bandage the wound.

A moment later, my father came home, looked at my roughly bandaged finger, carefully removed the bandage, wiped the blood, applied medicine and wrapped it securely. But instead of comforting me, my father hit me twice on the buttocks, saying: "Hit me so I'll remember, so that next time I won't pick up a knife on my own again."

I lay on the bed, both in pain from the wound and angry from the beating, thinking to myself: "My hand is bleeding and it hurts so much, but my father still beats me."

Now that I am an adult, I am sitting here, holding a knife to peel an apple for my grandchild. Looking at the grandchild next to me, I feel sorry for him. He had just cut his hand and was bleeding because he was peeling an apple with a knife and had been lightly slapped twice on the butt, just like me. I suddenly wondered: "I wonder if he feels the same way I did back then? A cut hand that was bleeding and painful, and then being beaten by his grandfather, will he 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/