Canvas "Melting Heart"

The last time she was hugged was twenty years ago.

When she came back after school and as soon as she opened the door, she ran into her father's arms. She cried while humming, talked about the teacher's injustice, about the stupid duo, about friends who wrote back and got tens, and the teacher saw it, but didn't say anything. Dad stroked her head and said that the double doesn't mean anything, "let it be the teacher's grade, and you will always be a ten to me."

But one day dad was gone, and so was his warmth.

And she was so needed!

The girl looked for her every day. When the going got tough, she'd open the closet, stick her head in between Dad's pinned shirts and suits, and stand there with her eyes closed. He would put the empty sleeves of his jacket on his shoulders, imagine comforting hands.

Twenty years have passed, the girl has grown up, lives in another city, but even now her father's old jacket hangs in her closet. And sometimes he hugs her.

I know how important it is - to be hugged, to snuggle your face into your beloved chest, so that the world disappears for a moment, only the familiar smell, warmth and the safest corner of the Earth remain - and then to run again, to live, with eyes wide open, drinking in days of adventure and nights of discovery .

Let that place - that gentle embrace - wait for me, I will miss it, and when I am tired, scared, lost - I will come back there again."

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