Pahawlan Cilan

2026

Well

POST WINGS

Many years ago, at a gathering, I had the fortune to meet an elderly man. He was not tall, even shorter than my shoulder, with a bashful and somewhat shy smile on his face. However, at the moment our hands clasped, I felt as if I had been struck by a legendary force.

It was a pair of extraordinarily thick, rugged, and enormous palms. Later, I learned that he had spent his entire life in labor—fishing, shipbuilding, and logging. The salt of the sea, the texture of wood, the friction of ropes, and the weight of long years had carved into his skin and bones, bit by bit. Those massive hands were not born that way; they had been gradually shaped by a lifetime of hard work.

He was merely a small-statured old man, yet in my eyes, he suddenly became a giant. Standing beside him, we, the neatly dressed and clean-handed people, appeared more like well-cared-for beautiful house cats.

He was not one for many words and did not tell me about his experiences. However, those hands themselves were a silent history of life. Every wrinkle and every thick callus recorded the years he had spent with the ocean, the land, and the trees.

In that handshake, we exchanged few words, yet it felt as though we had already connected deeply. I will always remember the moment our palms touched. What truly makes a person a giant is never their physical stature, but rather how much weight they have borne in life and how much they have created with their own hands.

Years later, I have not encountered another pair of hands like those on this land.

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