EPT
My family's story is probably not unlike most Asian families'. My father went from working in a factory to starting his own drycleaner. He was adamant about my mother staying home to take care of me and my brother so we'd have a proper upbringing. For the most part, we were good kids - we brought home good grades, received awards, went to specialized highschools - we were the typical trophy asian kids so to speak. Times at home weren't always great - my parents went through several times where my mom almost packed her bags to leave but through our protesting as well as further talks with my dad, she always put away her suitcase in the end. Our family was imperfect but seemingly whole nonetheless.
My freshman year of college, that wholesome image was essentially torn apart. My father sent me a rather short email basically stating that he was leaving for Korea and not sure when he was coming back. He said he was sorry, and that he loved me, and that was that.
The months that followed were obviously trying for all of us. My father and I kept in touch through email and I grew to understand his decision more. He and my mother had fundamentally different personalities that just didn't work. He had lost his feelings for her a long time ago but stayed in the marriage because he didn't want to distract me and my brother with our studies until we were in college and hopefully, older and more mature. To be honest, their basic difference in personalities was something I had noticed as well, and him telling me was just a confirmation. Though they lived under the same roof and slept in the same bed, that was where their interactions ended. Conversations were sparse and if they ever occurred, they were short. Dinners were always quiet. So although I was still extremely hurt with his sudden decision to leave, I tried to respect how hard it must have been for him to make the decision and maintained contact with him since he was all alone in Korea.
My mother was under a completely different mindset. She was horribly offended by his action and immediately surmised that there must be another woman. She brought him up in every conversation we had, essentially talking shit about him, asking how he could do such a thing, not just to her, but to us. Despite all of this, she maintained that we must try to get him to come back, because we needed to stay as a family, and though she denied it whenever I asked, I knew she was still in love with him. Though I understood her thoughts, I also knew how resolute my dad was with his decision - he had basically already left the marriage years ago, at least in his heart, and I knew it would be pointless in trying to get him to come back. I also desperately wanted my mother to get over him and move on - she was constantly thinking about the situation and it consumed her very being; she couldn't do anything. It hurt me to see her in so much pain over a man who didn't care about her anymore. I just wanted her to move on as he had - I wanted her to stop thinking and caring so much about a man who was basically indifferent towards her now.
I tried to tell her this but she couldn't understand... she couldn't understand why I would not want them to stay together. She couldn't understand why I wasn't raging and screaming and yelling at him to come back. She couldn't understand why I couldn't just console her in her pain and tell her that I would talk to my father and make sure he came back. I tried to tell her that that wasn't true - that I knew how much pain she was in, that I just wanted her to be happy too, but that I thought the best way for that to happen was if she moved on. But she always cut me off, saying I was scary, heartless, how she couldn't see how we were related at all anymore. I was extremely hurt and resented her... how could she say those words to me? How could she think I didn't care? Why couldn't she understand me?
Our relationship remained unstable for a long time as I couldn't let go of things she had said and she couldn't understand what I was thinking. But as time passed by, she grew a bit warmer to me when I went home for breaks and I grew to understand her more. While her words were very hurtful, I knew she didn't mean them. At the time she just wasn't in the emotional state to see anything else... She was a wife who had her husband whom she still loved leave her. How could she possibly see anything else but her own pain? It made sense that she found it incredulous I wasn't leaping to get my father to come back right away. For her part, I think she also grew to understand that I wasn't "against" her as well. We never really officially concluded the matter but I think there was an unspoken mutual understanding of one another.
Then a few months ago, my mother called me around noon which was an odd time to call because she knew I would be in class around then but I picked up anyway. As soon as she said my name I knew something was wrong - her usual strong, loud voice was reduced to a tremble and when I asked what was wrong, she proceeded to barely let out through her sobs that my grandmother, her mother, had passed away. I could barely process the information but I tried to console her the best I could and she told me she would be taking the next flight to Korea for the funeral, and that she was sorry that she wouldn't be home for my thanksgiving break. I told her it was okay, that it would all be okay, and we hung up.
I flew home for break and my aunt dropped me off at my house. I entered the empty house and immediately went into my parents' - now my mother's room and laid down on her bed. I stared at the ceiling and thought about how she must have already landed in Korea and met her sisters. She was the youngest of 6 children... her mother's favorite. I knew my grandmother's death was huge for her - they were so close; their bond was different from the rest because my grandmother had favored her so obviously, spoiling her with presents and being too softhearted to punish her even when she did wrong. And then I thought about how I would feel if my mother died. I started to tear at the very thought and then I started crying thinking about how my mother had sounded on the phone. I had never heard her cry like that before; I had never heard her sound so completely drenched in sheer pain, not even when it was about my father.
The house seemed so large and empty. I began to think about how she must feel coming home from a long day at work (she started to work in a small makeup store my senior year of highschool) into such an empty house. The house... it was supposed to be full of life, full of individuals filling up the three bedrooms. But she was alone. Her husband had left her. Her children were far away in college. And now her mother had died.
She was not just a mother... she was a wife, a daughter. She had a life past just raising me. She was a human being with emotions that sometimes made her say things she didn't mean. She was a human being who cried when her mother passed away. She fell apart when her husband left. She was flawed, just a person, like me.
I had expected perfection from her, been shocked and disappointed when she didn't act as a mother should. I had resented her and at times even hated her for the way she treated me and spoke to me. But what I had failed to see all this time was that she was prone to emotional ups and downs too, that she was also affected by events that happened to her, that she also knew how to cry and scream and yell. She was my mother, but she was also a person with a past full of details I'll never know of.
Our relationship has warmed considerably. This past spring break was the most fun I've had with her, just being near her, eating her priceless home-cooked food, talking about what's going on with kpop stars, watching korean shows with her. It's those simple things... and though I'm back at school miles away, we share frequent phonecalls that aren't even that long - I think we just enjoy the raw gesture that we think about each other.
Though I'm so far away, for my mother who still works hard every day and goes home to a empty house, struggling to pay for its bills... for my mother who has gone through hell in the past two years and is still strong today... for my mother who is a flawed human being just like me... it's never too cheap, or too cheesy to say "I love you".
어머니 너무나도 사랑하고 감사합니다.
