Remembrance

My mom returned from a 2-week trip to Korea just this morning. The last time I traveled to Seoul was in 2003 with my son, C, when he was just 15 months old. My grandfather's health was beginning to fail at that time, so I decided that he and his only great-grandson needed to meet before it was too late. My grandfather passed away later that December.

When my grandfather died, I was pregnant with our daughter. I remember when I first got married, I made my mom promise me one thing. Knowing that with my husband in dental school, finances would be tight for us for quite some time, I made her promise me that if my grandfather passed away, she would loan me the money to fly to Korea for his funeral. And she made that promise. What I didn't expect was that when that time came, I would be pregnant and unable to fly.

I remember so very clearly the last time I saw my grandfather's face. We said our sad good-byes and walked out the front door of his house, dragging our many pieces of luggage behind us. He was already having difficulty walking by then, so we told him to stay inside the house. But no matter how many times we told him to stay, he insisted that he had to see us out. My last image of my grandfather is of him crying, sitting on the front stoop of his house, bent over his walking stick as we pulled away in a taxi.

I still cry whenever I think of my grandpa not being alive and well "somewhere" over there in the Motherland. And it goes without saying that it breaks my heart that I have still not made it over there to visit his grave (though I know that that is not where his spirit lies).

Before my mom left on this trip, I gave her a rock from our backyard. I asked her to take it to his grave and lay it there, from me. I can just picture how happy he would be to know how well I'm doing and how happy I am with my life. I can still hear his voice and his laughter. If I could talk to him on the phone, I know that he would laugh and laugh, saying, "When did you grow up and have three kids? What do you know about taking care of your own home when I can still remember you crawling around in a diaper?"

Mom picked a wildflower for me from his grave site. It's a little purple wildflower, native to Korea. She pressed it in a book and brought it back to give to me.

So here I sit today, thinking about and missing my grandpa, who was such a great man. I love you, Halabuji.