In her beautiful story, she learns about her daughter's birthday, her new clothes with a big red ribbon on her waist, her friends, their offerings. Her daughter is six years old. She will start studying next year. And our teacher wanted her daughter to be a doctor- and a good doctor.
It was in that part of our teacher's speech that a child behind me whispered: "Like her father!" Our teacher heard what the girl said. And she spoke.
"Yes, like her father," she said. But blood ran down her face as a strained smile flashed across her lips. That was the first and last mention in our class about the father of the birthday girl.
I can be sure when she did something wrong in her life. She was wrong just like that. And as I sat on my throne, only two feet away from her, my heart ached with the desire to approach her, hold his hands as she did that afternoon in the corner of the library, and ask to open a conversation to me. Perhaps, it would be easier for her to be honest with at least one person. But, it suppressed that desire of mine; my classmates listened indifferently to her saying, "Yes, like her father," as blood ran down her face.
Then, she said something I will never forget. She looked at me with all her might, suppressing the trembling of her lips and said: “It is as good as it can be said that only who experiences secret sorrows, can recognize secret happiness. It's good, and now, start with our lesson… ”
I was sure then, as I am now sure that that sentence was not mine, neither in my speeches, nor in my writings. But as she stared at me that morning, as she said that sentence, I felt her and I were one. And we are part of the creatures that because experienced secret sorrows recognize secret happiness.
And once again, that morning, as the color of her face gradually returned, she again revealed the hidden beauties in our Literature lesson. The beauty of courage; the beauty of continuity regardless of the color of life.
And now, it's only been a few days since I heard about that doctor's passing. The father of your child will probably also be a doctor one day, died and was buried for two nights and two days in a house where Mabuti and his daughter did not live. And I understood everything. In the naked truth of it and in all its cruelty I understood everything.
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