A Story That Healed
- Kyle Kao
- Jun 18, 2020
- 2 min read
Writing to me is a pure therapeutic process that when the pen scrolling its ball on the grumbling white sheet of a paper, a child somewhere was dancing in an open field, an old man had took his last breath, a bus that carried away a memory of old, a plane that flew so close to the harvest moon, and slowly all of it faded.

I wanted to write not because I had envisioned a commercial success from a career that I called life, but because the topics that my generation had tried too well to hide. It’s time to reveal our thoughts, to crack open those wounds, and all those surgeries that had gone so wrong, so that it might not bestow this heritage to the next. I and millions of other people from across high and low context nations had shared and lived in somewhat the same reality. Some of us grew up with pain and trauma that we didn’t know how to get past that. We censored our traumas, depression, sexuality as if it was the most humiliating truth. We stigmatized the word, depression, anxiety, suicide, gay, lesbian, bisexual, weirdo, dreamer, lover, believer, and differences. We are a generation of post-traumatic war, a war of reality, and one that was always in our head.
I remember so clearly the time when I first wanted to commit suicide. Even if I ended up trying too many times and failing, my reality had perished long before I accepted it. When I came to accept it, it was too little too late to heal and redeem from those fractures. Even if I vow to never pass down that pain to the next generation, it remains a commitment that is never promising.
An extremely powerful and emotional story of a young boy back then after the end of Cambodia's civil war was elaborately set out as a full package of trauma known as 'Black' a memoir by Kyle Kao.
With the mixture of childhood life, traditional culture, family problems, mental health, independent life, etc., this incredible book can carry me across, that lets me position with empathy and bring me to feel a young kid's whole life story and how he coped with all the stuff that happens all along the way.
"The suffering goes on from generations until someone decides to experience it." I want to shout out to the author of this book for every detail of the life journey…
I could not put down this beautiful book when I started reading it. I like how the author gave details to the little things and other perspectives we might have neglected in real life. I am yearning for more after the ending. I mean Wow! Cambodia need more writers like Kyle.
" Black" is going to take you to a young boy's childhood. It portrays the confusion that he has encountered through the topics such as love, success, and betrayal from his surroundings and loved ones. I can relate so much that I would cry while reading it.
" I was 13 when you had me sitting in the middle asking me who I would choose to live with. I was just a kid." This breaks me into pieces! I could not believe how you overcome it to where you are now and I am really sorry for what you have been through. However, congrats on your new book bong and I am so glad I meet you. I am a…