Can Yaman International Presents: Part 2: Erkenci Kus, The Continuing Story

Chapter 12: "The Power of Words"

At the end of Chapter 11:  As everyone joined together on the patio, Mevkibe stayed behind. She was too afraid to follow them. She could not face Can now knowing how lonely he felt, all because of someone's sick plan to drive him away from those that loved him. Not after all the things she and Nihat told Sanem about him, accusing him of such heinous wrongdoing while all along he was innocent. Can had still come back to their daughter and faced them knowing he had done nothing wrong. Mevkibe could not face him, not without speaking with Nihat first.

(Author's Note:  Please read to the end of the chapter and give us your thoughts and comments about it. And don't forget to vote. Thank you!)

********** 

There comes a day in a man's life that changes him forever. The day he becomes a father to one, two, or half a dozen children. Something changes in him on that day. That day a door opens in his heart that he never knew existed. There also comes another day when he realizes his child has grown and is ready to spread his or her wings, ready to make it on their own. But there comes a day that no father ever wishes for. The day he realizes he had made a mistake when it comes to a child bestowed upon him not by blood but by virtue of his child's fate and true love. Such a mistake weighs heaviest on his heart because of the burden of his own words.

 If there was one thing that could be said about Nihat Aydin, it was that he loved his beloved wife Mevkibe more than life itself. He loved her for the daughters she bestowed upon him. He loved her for the food she prepared with the hand of a magician; it never failed to reach all the way up to his heart. But there was one reason he loved Mevkibe beyond all other reasons that mattered to him. One reason he had never looked away from her, why he had never left her side. It was her incomparable virtue of forgiveness.

They have been married for many years, many beautiful years. During those years, their love had been tested innumerable times. There were many examples of this but none in his heart could compare to the one day his heart almost broke in half ... because of his own words. When Nihat learned of Can and Sanem's accident, his life changed. And his heart changed that day... forever.

He was angry with Can. What father wouldn't be? Can had fled after Yigit's accident. But using that word to describe what he did was not how Nihat saw it. To him, Can had not "fled" but had completely abandoned Sanem. Forsaken her. Rejected her love and their future together. Not only leaving behind the woman who loved him above any other person in her life, Can had left behind the women who was his fiancè. To Nihat, this was inexcusable. Can may have been raised in a way that paid little attention to family values or traditions, but the Aydin family relied on them to raise their family the right way. Nihat always felt Mevkibe had trusted Can far too quickly and way too easily.

But the moment Can turned to Nihat during his birthday party and asked for permission to ask Sanem to marry him, Nihat's heart opened up and welcomed Can as his son. Not just as a son-in-law, but as a son, the son he never had. Try as he might, Nihat had never felt this way about Emre. But he did not question it; he just accepted the difference as it was. Can was the first man ever that Nihat had trusted with his daughter.

After Can left, Nihat's faith in his judgment as a father was badly shaken. He believed he had entrusted his daughter's life to the wrong man. This was not an easy thing to accept. Nihat knew he was not a man without faults but a man does not give up on his family... ever. Can may have come into their family wanting to belong with them, going out of his way to make sure Sanem was cared for. But the more he was around them, the more his footsteps stayed in the Aydin household... and in their hearts. Sanem wasn't the only one who had started to love Can. They had all come to accept and love him.

As a father, Nihat's heart feared for Sanem long before Can proposed to her. Their relationship even put a strain on his marriage to Mevkibe, but they got through it. He believed they could get through anything and everything, because he believed Can when he promised Sanem he would always take care of her during his proposal. When Can left, Nihat's broken trust hit him just as hard as it hit Sanem. Can chose to leave behind someone who had put her whole heart in his hands. Because she had, Sanem now had no heart left in her body. No heart left to breathe. No heart left to dream. No heart left to make herself want to live. The months, weeks, days, minutes, seconds without Can were neverending, to all of them. To Nihat, seeing Sanem suffer the way she did was a constant reminder of Can's cowardice and his own failure. He felt like a failure because he failed to protect his little girl from the one pain he promised himself to protect her from on the day she was born.