1. Mother
-Minuk. Don't fight, and be careful around water.
"Ah, Mother. I'm turning forty the day after tomorrow. Forty."
I had a hero.
My own hero.
Someone who always stood in the same spot, watching over only me.
But ironically, I failed to realize how precious that existence was.
Living in a world overflowing with air, I never knew its worth. Just as one doesn't know the value of water when it can be found anywhere, I lived unaware of the sacrifices made by the most important existence in my world.
-Are you cold? Are you eating well?
"Oh, Ma. Please... You think I'd go around skipping meals? I'm busy. I'll call you later."
Truly, human beings are fickle.
Because she was always there, did I just assume she always would be?
-Son. Mom misses her boy. When are you coming down to visit?
"Ma. I'll call you later. I'm busy these days."
I should have cherished her while she was still here.
Time always slips away, and the void left by the one I thought would always be there is far greater than I imagined.
It has been a year since Mother passed away.
I.
Today, I go to save her.
*
[Minuk. Mom... Mom says she wants to see her son's face one last time...]
My sister's trembling voice.
My heart sank.
My one and only mother in this world, whom I had forgotten in the bustle of life.
Mother was born in 1951.
Her hometown was Gunwi, Gyeongsangbuk-do.
Even amidst the chaos of war, flowers bloomed and new life sprouted.
Fortunately, the Gyeongbuk region held the Nakdong River defense line at the time, so my mother and her family were able to remain safe.
"I was so young I don't remember a thing."
It was a blessing that she grew up without remembering the horrific tragedy of fratricidal war, which was dreadful even to imagine.
Mother had three older brothers. The oldest brother, eight years her senior. Another brother three years older, and a youngest brother two years older. And then her mother and father.
The youngest of three boys and one girl. No matter the harshness of the times, it was only natural for the youngest daughter to be doted upon.
They weren't wealthy, but they were happy.
Except for one person.
My mother's oldest brother.
"Hey. If you hide it and I find out, you're really dead. Hand it over."
Even as times changed, the thuggish habit of extorting money remained the same. Or perhaps, it was just the beginning of it.
My mother's oldest brother was the local thug. He terrorized the entire village, wreaking havoc and stealing pocket money from little kids.
And yet, there was one exception.
My beloved mother.
To his beloved youngest sister, he was endlessly affectionate.
"Gyeongsuk. Is there anything you want?"
"I like you the best in the world, brother."
"You little brat..."
He was a born fighter. Having learned judo since childhood, everyone said he would grow up to be a famous thug like Kim Doo-han, or go to the Olympics and win a gold medal. Of course, judo wasn't an Olympic sport yet in that era.
Regardless, they managed to get by somewhat harmoniously. Acting as a shield of strength, the oldest brother protected his siblings in those violent times. Just the phrase, "I am Lee Dong-ho's sibling," was enough to make the local thugs avert their eyes in deference. And this was when the oldest brother wasn't even twenty yet.
-Ma. I'm going to Seoul. I will succeed and come back for sure.
Leaving behind nothing but a single letter, my mother's oldest brother left just like that.
Scraping together every last penny in the house. Even selling the deed to their meager home.
That was January 2, 1961.
The day after the start of the new year.
My mother was only twelve. She hadn't even entered the fifth grade yet.
My mother's oldest brother.
No. It was because of that son of a bitch.
The reason my mother lived such a hard life in her childhood.
-Dongho. He blew all the money and, said he couldn't face his family, so he... he killed himself.
A friend who had followed that scoundrel returned after six months to say that my mother's oldest brother was dead. And so began the pitch-black darkness and poverty of my maternal grandparents' family.
That was why my second uncle became my oldest uncle, and my third uncle became my youngest uncle.
Since he died living a life of depravity before I was even born, he was a stranger I never met, a good-for-nothing scoundrel who made my mother's life miserable.
A penniless family, without a home or a penny to their name.
Born a rural peasant, my grandfather had farmed his entire life; what magical skills could he possibly possess? They were tenant farmers on the village landlord's land in name only, working day and night like slaves just to put food on the table. My mother's education also came to an end with her elementary school graduation.
"Gyeongsuk... I'm so sorry..."
"Ma, I'm alright. You need to look after my brothers."
Poverty forces youth to mature early.
After helping with the housework for a year or two, my mother found work at a dyeing factory in Daegu and left her hometown.
They had to reduce the number of mouths to feed, and they had to educate the second son, who was now the eldest.
To do that, someone had to earn money.
Even though my mother was not even eighteen yet...
At an age when Seong Chun-hyang and Yi Mong-ryong might have been frolicking in love, my mother was working day and night in a dyeing factory.
That was probably the last time.
The era when my mother's hands were still beautiful.
My mother loved dyeing her nails with balsam flowers far more than any common nail polish.
"Son. Is Mom pretty?"
"The color doesn't even show up properly. Should I buy you some nail polish?"
"I like this better than nail polish."
Perhaps, when applying the balsam dye, she remembered her pure childhood days, and for just that moment, she became a child again.
And as she gazed blankly at her own hands, I never noticed how the joints of her fingers were swelling, thickening, and growing coarse.
Still, there was one thing my mother took the greatest pride in, saying she did it well.
She said it was the first and last decision she made for herself, and she would boast of it whenever she sat me on her lap to clean my ears.
"Gye... Gye... Gyeongsuk. I... I-I-I lo-lo-love you."
"I like you too."
It was the encounter with my father.
Rare for the times, my mother married for love, burning with passion. Love marriages weren't entirely uncommon, but defying one's parents to force it through was still rare.
"This marriage is a no!"
"Why!"
"If you marry into a house that doesn't even have a single grain of rice, you'll suffer, I tell you!"
"But I said I want to, Father!"
"It's still a no! Absolutely not!"
"I love him, Father... In all this time, I've never once asked to do what I wanted... *sob*..."
My mother fought for and won her love.
It was a union between two penniless families, after all.
The marriage happened in a flash, as quick as roasting beans over lightning.
At least they had a proper wedding like everyone else and took wedding photos. Though my grandfather couldn't even bring himself to smile in the picture.
It wasn't that my grandfather opposed the marriage because he hated my father. He surely wanted his only youngest daughter to be happy, and my father was genuinely penniless.
Having money doesn't guarantee happiness, but lacking it certainly pushes you further away from it. That was an undeniable truth, both then and now.
-Waaa
Less than a year after the wedding, my older sister was born into the world.
Married life in a single room. They said they were happy.
My mother had never had a room of her own, always shoved around by her brothers, and at the factory, she had lived for a long time in a filthy, prison-like dorm room sharing it with three others.
As for my father, born as the second son of a poor family that only supported the eldest brother's education, carrying firewood on his back had been his daily routine since he was ten. In truth, my father's biological father—my biological grandfather—had died in the war, and my father was adopted by his eldest uncle, living a life of virtual abuse.
The reason my father walked with a limp was because he had fallen while carrying firewood and never received proper medical treatment. Despite this, my father always visited the main family's house to pay his respects on holidays.
Regardless, for those two people, happiness wasn't far away.
And two years later.
Finally, I was born into the world.
It was ordinary.
We just became another ordinary four-person family in South Korea, a moderately poor household that deluded itself into believing it was middle-class.
A meeting between a man who loved only one woman, and a purely gentle, innocent woman.
And their pride and joy, a daughter and a son.
My mother finally found happiness then.
"Oh... Minuk's father... *sob*, if you leave me behind and go alone like this, what am I supposed to do..."
Happiness always visits like a dream, only to vanish like the wind.
The sturdy pillar of our household.
My father had passed away.
That was before I had even graduated from elementary school.
My father drove a taxi. A drunk driver from the oncoming lane crossed the center line and crashed head-on into his cab.
And so, my mother's happiness—brief yet enduring—came to an end.
Raising two children alone as a woman is no easy task.
It would have been easier if she only had to help out, like in her own childhood. But now, she had to feed, clothe, and educate two children entirely by herself.
My mother sometimes became a kitchen lady, and sometimes a factory worker.
On rainy days and snowy days alike, my mother rose at dawn, lifting her heavy knees from the floor.
"Mom. I need some allowance."
"How much do you need?"
"I need about 50,000 won."
Crumpled ten-thousand-won and thousand-won bills spilled out from my mother's pocket.
I still regret those days.
Why was I so selfish.
Knees.
Shoulders.
Wrists.
Heart.
Blood vessels.
Lower back.
My mother's body slowly broke down, piece by piece, but I thrived, nourished by her blood and sweat.
When I turned twenty, I went to a university in Seoul.
A not-so-good university.
It would have been enough to attend a university while staying by my mother's side.
But I left my mother.
So I didn't know.
I knew of my mother's past before I was born from what she and my uncles had told me, but I remained ignorant of the other half of her life—the years we lived together.
It is the natural order for a bus to depart toward the next station, while the signpost stands endlessly in the same spot, waiting for the bus to return.
It doesn't urge it to come back, nor does it scold it to stop.
The unfilial son of the world...
I don't think I was like that.
Graduating from a university like everyone else, I at least landed a job at a company where nine out of ten people would recognize the name.
Having passed forty this year, I've weathered my share of hardships and lived quite fiercely and diligently.
As it always is in life, even if you make a little money, the world is hardly that forgiving.
The world constantly urged me to run harder, telling me that stopping meant collapsing, and looking back meant falling apart.
The departed bus's sin of running hard with its eyes only forward accounts for one-tenth of the blame,
The sin of believing it was running so well on its own accounts for the remaining nine-tenths.
Before departure, it was only natural that someone would have wiped it down, tightened its bolts, fueled it up, and patted its back with a smile.
But once it starts running, people easily forget.
- Mom, I can't come down this holiday.
- Mother. I was going to come, but something came up at work...
At first, I visited home for the New Year and major holidays, but at some point, I started skipping one of the two major annual holidays. Then, before I knew it, skipping both became more frequent.
Naturally, visiting home in between was out of the question. Would a son who couldn't even be bothered to visit during the holidays drop by just because he had some free time...? I merely went on overseas trips, full of myself, and lived to show off my clumsily learned golf skills to my friends.
In the time I didn't know,
My mother still couldn't let go of work.
Not only had her two children failed to succeed enough to carry their mother in a flower palanquin, but I had also ignored her determination not to ask her children for help, disguising my neglect as "respect."
And so.
My mother still had to run with a broken body.
From the January she was twelve, through well over fifty years.
Without a single break...
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