[BOOK REVIEW] The Memory of Deep Water
Young Choi, Regent University
At dusk, the Salinas Valley lay in its usual stillness, yet there was something altered in the air that evening. Beneath a sky bruised red by the dying sun, a boy walked slowly along a dust-worn road. His name was Samuel.
It had been three days since Samuel left his father’s land. The soil had been rich, but the heart that tended it had felt spare and ungiving. His father was a man of few words, and, it seemed to the boy, of even fewer affections. So Samuel had gone—slipped away from a house that did not call him back.
But the world proved wider than he had reckoned, and a man’s spirit, he found, could fracture more easily than bone.
That evening, Samuel came upon an old well and sat beside it. The water had long since withdrawn into the earth, leaving behind only a faint dampness in the soil below. He gazed into its shallow hollow and, without warning, a memory stirred—of a younger day when his father had carried him on his shoulders to draw water from this very place.
In that memory, his father had been smiling.
Samuel could not say whether it had truly been so. Time has a way of softening truth, or else replacing it with a gentler lie.
“Water must be deep to run clear.”
The words returned to him then, as though spoken again in the hush of that failing light.
He sat for a long while, unmoving. And then, quite suddenly, he wept. Not from hunger, nor from the weariness of the road, but from something older—something long buried within him that yielded, at last, beneath the quiet mercy of evening.
At length, he rose.
And he turned back.
The road home was no shorter than before, yet it no longer seemed so fearful. At its end would stand his father—still a man of few words, still unpracticed in tenderness. But Samuel understood now that love need not be full to be true, nor spoken to be known.
Night settled over the Salinas River, and darkness spread its long shadow across the land. Yet even within that gathering dark, there remained a slender thread of light—enough to show a man his way.
{Solti}
April 26, 2026
Young Choi, PhD is a Professor at Regent University bringing a rare combination of technical expertise and creative spirit to everything he does. A scholar in AI, cybersecurity, network and telecommunications service management, he has published 38 books including AI and cybersecurity areas, over 200 refereed articles, and over 20 book chapters. Beyond the academy, Dr. Choi is a passionate poet, essayist, and wooden block engraving artist whose reflective writing invites readers to rediscover life’s beauty in quiet contemplation. He lives under the motto: “Study hard and give generously without holding back! (열심히 공부해서 아낌없이 남주자 !)”
Published books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Young-Choi/author/B0DMZ5S6R7?ref=ap_rdr&shoppingPortalEnabled=true