My two outstretched hands grab onto the floor to slide. Using the center of gravity of my body to propel forward, across the wooden floor. Mom calls out my name. Her voice feeble and weak. Can Mom hear me? Is that even her voice? My name escapes her breath, which I ignore. I continue to slide myself across the hallway, willing my ears to not hear her. I want to go outside to play. I don’t want to spoon water into her parched mouth every few seconds. Growing tired of the monotonous act of caregiving to the woman dying from cancer. A woman who gave up her treatment to come home to die, spending as much time with her three children.
Over the years, this image haunted me, etched and burned into my heart of longing.
Berating myself over the years for not fulfilling my duty and leaving her that day. Imagining her pain. Not being able to generate her own spit, her esophagus removed. A feeding tube into to her stomach. Once beautiful and calm, now a patient in my care. A woman I no longer recognized. A woman whose body I used to crawl to, to lay atop her, because I was afraid of everything. A woman who let me do anything and everything. A woman who taught me how to write my name even before starting school. A woman who was no longer my caretaker. A safety net. A giver. Now a receiver. Guilt from this moment haunts me still.
The night she passed away, she begged to speak to her husband, the father of his three chidren. She stayed with us for three days, with constant wailing in the background. Her body wrapped in white cloth, with her face out. Her eyes wide open, searching for whom, you may ask? The father of her children. Worried about the three children she left behind, she coudn’t close her eyes. Even as we closed them with our hands, they would open back up. How cold she felt to my touch. Even then, I didn’t know she was dead. I didn’t know that she was gone forever. My first experience with death. On the third day, I don’t even remember getting into a car, and walking next to my mother being carried up a hill. The wailing and crying, with me in silent observation. No one sat me down to talk to me about what had happened. So it’s no surprise that I am hyper viligant. Neighbors talk about us as if we are invisible and deaf. “They are so young, how can they play games when their mom has just passed away? Tsk tsk tsk.” What else was I supposed to do, even then I thought to myself.
The guilt of a ten year old for not taking care of her dying mother. What crime, I ask myself. What did you expect from a child needing to play? To escape her reality of suffering just for few hours? What do you expect from a child who was given too many responsibilities? A child that’s already been beaten and smashed against too many waves? The pain and guilt that has been growing in her tender and wounded heart? A child who feels too much? A child who cries to close the muchness. To let the light in. To close out the shadows? What do you expect from a child who is hardest on herself? Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment comes to mind. We administer self-punishment, whipping ourselves to pulp. Cutting and diminishing ourselves for the shame that is not our own?
Making sense of the impossible, creating connections where there are none, a child’s play to be okay. To weather the today’s storm to live another day. Mother nature fighting to stay alive. Because to process the reality of the situations as they were would have broken me. Tantrums and shaking that would have sent me to insane asylums. Where do you go from your last refuge, the home of your parents after marrying, divorcing and abandoned by the love of your life? Where do you go from this life raft?
Even then, I knew what situation we were in. And so, I did the best I could. So that I could live to this day. To be able to pour my heart onto these pages, with my eyes closed. Sitting on the bench and table I bought for myself and for myself only. Not worrying about the world and how it will be received. To live the life of my own. For myself, finally. Instead of wanting to things to take care of everyone around me. Putting the world against my shoulders, I have walked all my life.
Now, I choose to let you go. All of you, the pain. The longing. The suffering. Even the lifeboats of my imaginations and disconnectedness from the world. I am my responsibility. You are your own. I am not responsible for you. Whoever you are. You are not my father. You are not my mother.
The pain body of the past continues to fight for life. With more compassion and less annoyance, I embrace you. A living life force of my past survival, fighting to survive. I don’t need you anymore, and I am grateful to you for keeping me alive and sane. For putting a blocker and blinder, so I can run as fast as I could to get away from there. The past, the smallness that still ingrates me to this day.
Finally, I am starting to see myself for what I am. What I am not. The being that expands. Switching the narrative. The three generations… the story I want to write is about myself. Doing the natural research by reading 조정래의 Arirang and 태백산맥. Spending as much time as I was welcomed to connect with my past.
How many goodbyes, pain and displacements did I endure as a child? A cornocopia of suffering followed by a group of helpers and guides providing opportunities and experiences. Leading to choices and self-realizations. Into the today of abundance.
They say God never gives you more than you can handle. Sean said I chose to be born into this body, this time, and this family. What am I meant to experience and learn from this life? What gifts and talents must I utilize to dance the life’s gift of breath?
I close my eyes and imagine myself as me, as the ten year old. I do not crawl. I stand up and answer her. I slide the wooden door open. I cross the threshold and sit next to Mom. I take the silver spoon from the bowl of water and pour a little water into her dry and scabbed mouth. She exhales from relief, and I smile into her face. My small hands wrap myself around her frail body. And I tell her. 사랑해요. 고마워요. I love you. Thank you. I tell her that I will be okay because you have already done so much for me. Just like the many evenings after coming home after selling insurance on foot, tears roll down her face, and she reminds me to be good to my sister. Take care of your brother. 언니 말 잘듣고, 싸우지 말고.You’re all you have. She smiles as best as she can. Tears roll down my face. Melting away the guilt and longing.