Hairs outside your head cannot make you exist.
My father used to tell us, “What matters is not the outside of the head, but the inside.” Hairs outside your head cannot make you exist.
My father used to tell us, “What matters is not the outside of the head, but the inside.” Hairs outside your head cannot make you exist.
When we were little, my father used to cut our hair with a red paper scissors behind the book stationery store. Neither my older brother nor I liked it at all. We sighed a lot to keep a girl from coming to the store while getting shaved. As we grew older, this shame increased, the worse part was that my father enjoyed this situation, we couldn’t get away from him.
Feeling relaxed in the last weeks of school, we grew our hair a bit and, with the start of summer vacation, we were going from my mother’s side to my father’s; going to work in his store.
When my father asked something, sometimes we would turn our necks sideways so that our hair wouldn’t catch his eye and speak like that, it was easier from one side, anyway, we could hardly meet my father’s gaze.
My father only gave us money when we worked with him, this money did not exceed the minimum needs of the house where we lived with my mother. The penny, exactly a PENNY. He would ask for the electric and water bills of the house for the months we worked, and he would give exactly that amount with all the deductions.
One day my sister went to pay the bills with the money my father gave.
The Bill Payment Story: A 4 km Walk for Nothing
After walking 4 km in the heat and arriving at the cashier, a one-day late payment debt had appeared on the bill, and since she didn’t have 12 kurus (cents), she walked back the same way and asked my father for those 12 kurus.
We wanted to put a stop to this and took money from my father, it wasn’t much, just enough for a haircut, not even enough for the transportation to and from home to the place we would get shaved. We lived in Egekent, and walked down to Çiğli. We found a barber shop and went in to get haircuts in turn.
A narrow shop, an L-shaped counter in the corner, mirrors in front and on both sides, I was shocked! I saw my nose from the side for the first time, the feeling of getting my hair cut in a barber shop for the first time disappeared in steam, I was upset, I felt ugly.
While returning home, we climbed the uphill path by running, now we had grown up. More importantly, we were free.
I remember you with the least you have, my dear father, WITH LOVE