Why a blog?

Dearest Hazel,

Someday you may wonder why I chose to make this blog; why I made so many personal stories public. I'm not sure I know the answer to that myself, but I know what it is that nags at me from the back of my head, urging me to write everything I can. You see, 10 years ago, my mother – your grandmother – got sick. It wasn't the first time, but it was the worst. Grandma and I had struggled to get along for so long and were finally in a good place. I lost a lot of time getting to know her and understanding her story. Some years later, I wrote a paper for a writing class. Every so often, I dust it off and clean it up a little. I suppose that a part of me hopes that someday I'll be able to write an addendum to it. Here is today's version…

The Strength of a Mother’s Love

How do you forget the voice that, for so long, guided you, pushed you, punished you? When I close my eyes and think of my mother’s voice, I hear nothing.  I no longer remember the nuances that made her voice unique. I no longer hear her telling me to strive for something greater. I no longer hear her telling me to be proud of who I am. I no longer hear her consoling me when things go wrong. And I no longer hear her yelling Jungshin Charyo! telling me in Korean to get my act together. What once was so vivid has now faded into a blur – a rough sketch cruelly drawn with disappearing ink.

It’s been years since my mother suffered her fifth aneurysm. The rare disease that sat inside her in wait had proven especially devastating this time. Perhaps it was merciful that she quickly slipped into a coma, but nothing feels merciful when you learn that your mother is very ill in a hospital six thousand miles away. I remember the very moment that I got the message – where I was and what I was doing just before. Earlier that day I had learned that I was getting a promotion. As I was driving home that evening, I excitedly called my girlfriend – now your mother!-  to tell her the good news. I remember hearing the clicking of another call, but I was not going to be bothered as I shared this proud moment. It was not until afterwards when I checked my voicemail while idling at a red light that I heard my father’s shaky voice. And before he explained what had happened, I already knew my mother had suffered another aneurysm.

This was not the first time I had gotten this call from my father. When I left home eight years prior, she had already been in the hospital twice. Each time, the doctors told us that only a very strong person could have survived. Strong. It was the word from which everyone began when describing her. I couldn't help but smile each time a doctor would say this, as I knew that they had no idea just how strong she truly was. She will recover, I remember thinking after each incident, and this will be the last time she’ll get sick. On that morning, however, she would get sick again, just after my father had dropped her off at work. Given the severity of her previous aneurysms, she had taken a job in the same organization as my father. He kept an eye out for her, and I think that in turn made her feel safer. That day, like every other, they had arrived at work early. My father left her at her building and walked over to his office in another. About an hour later, a coworker found her lying unconscious in a back office. She was rushed to the hospital, and it was from there that my father called me.

My mother and I used to fight endlessly before she first got sick. She was very traditional and strict; I was the troublesome child. We fought for years – two stubborn Koreans who had only our blood in common when we argued. We fought and then we hugged, even when it was so much easier to do the former. “It’s because you two are so much alike,” my father would say. “You get your passion and stubbornness from her.” I was sixteen when she had her first aneurysm, and it was then that I saw just how similar we really were. I was strong, forged by my mother’s will, taught to fight for every last inch, and then to prepare for life's next battle. But like my mother, although I was strong on the outside, I was weak with health problems. Perhaps it was because of this that she fought with me – to make me stronger in every way that she could, because she couldn't make me stronger on the inside.

I wasn't the only one she fought with. She was never afraid to argue with anyone, and she never showed vulnerability. I remember a time when I was about ten – my mother was driving us home across the Han River that divides Seoul in half. We were almost off the bridge when a policeman pulled us over. His intention was obvious – in Korea, policemen pull drivers over to make a little extra cash in payouts, a practice that everyone who drives in Korea is familiar with. My mother, however, had no intention of paying. Sitting in the car with a big grin on my face, I watched as my mother scolded the young policeman and demanded to see his radar gun. When she finally wrestled it out of the police car and saw that the policeman hadn't even used it, my mother went off in a fit worthy of a viral YouTube video. It took a second policeman and the threat of arrest before she was finally coaxed back into our car. Although still visibly upset, she immediately smiled and drove us home after she saw that I was amused.

Strong. It was her toughness that set her apart from all the other women I would know in my life. Long before she got sick, before she took on corrupt policemen, and before she met my father, she watched her own mother pass away in their farming village near the southern tip of Korea. When my mother was a young teenager, her father would remarry, but this new woman did not like his children. Even at a young age, my mother was too strong, too proud, and too stubborn. She fought this new woman, this replacement mother. Then, not long after her high school graduation, my mother packed up her things and headed north until she hit Seoul. It was there that she would make friends and work various jobs to support herself. It was there where she would meet my father, the young American Army engineer who happened into the same party and fell in love. And it was there that she raised me to be just like her – strong, proud and stubborn, able to handle the tough world outside her arms.

When the light turned green that day, I drove home and slowly walked to my apartment. Before calling my father back, I listened to his message again, hoping that I had dreamed it, finding that I had not. My mother was in the hospital again, and this time her strength would not be enough. Like a piece of metal bent too many times, she had finally broken. The hemorrhaging had gone on for too long in that lonely back office and there was too much damage.

I close my eyes each day and try to listen for her voice, hoping to find it in some dark corner. I know it’s inside me, just as surely as I know that I will likely never hear it again. I listen for her voice to tell me what to do and how to be strong. I listen in vain and I curse the genetic thief that took away my mother. I will never again hear her voice telling me to work hard, to marry a good Korean girl, or to keep pushing forward, especially when times get rough. But even if I can’t find her voice, I know that she will always be a part of me, making me stronger.

I see now that my mother was not strong enough that day only because she had given her strength to me.

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Hazel, I am writing to you because I am afraid to lose the past because if that happens, you will lose something too. I promise to do my best to tell you stories of our family and the things that have shaped who we are.

And I promise to try and keep them a little more upbeat…

Love Always, Dad