Returning to a Land Without My Mother

Returning to a Land Without My Mother

I came to Korea in great haste. Before the year came to an end, I received the news that my mother was critically ill. She had endured a long battle with illness, but hearing that her condition had worsened—while I was living far away—was something no amount of preparation could soften. My chest felt as though it were being torn apart.

Living abroad often means carrying a quiet sense of guilt. When something happens, you cannot immediately run to the person you love. Even in the midst of grief, I found myself searching for plane tickets, folding my life into a small carry-on bag. I pressed in every piece of clothing I owned that held even a trace of black. I was fortunate to find a flight. I had always feared the stories of those who could not attend a parent’s funeral because no ticket was available. That fear had lived with me for years.

Throughout the flight, my tears would not stop. Memories of my mother—moments, conversations, emotions—passed through me without sound. I still do not know what to call that feeling. While I had been running endlessly to survive in a foreign land, time had continued on its quiet path. My mother had aged without ceremony, becoming a white-haired old woman before I fully realized it. And suddenly, impossibly, I was on a plane returning to a country where my mother no longer existed.

When people live together, they entrust years of their lives to one another through emotion. It feels like traveling across the sea in a small boat, rocked constantly by waves. Inside that boat, we argue and worry, cling and hesitate, become each other’s reason for living, and sometimes inflict unbearable pain. All of it dissolves into shared time.

As I traveled toward my mother, these emotions surged through me like a rapid panorama. “Grief” alone could not contain them. There were memories of the truths I tried to convey, the sincerity I offered, and the ways it failed to reach her because she understood the world differently. There were wounds exchanged, and yet, despite everything, love endured. These thoughts, too, left me unable to stop crying.

When I think of my mother, the image that comes to me is a campfire. On a cold, dark night, a campfire offers comfort simply by existing—through its warmth and the sound of burning wood. I survived many difficult seasons by holding onto that warmth. Yet if one stepped too close, it could burn. We expressed love differently. Still, I know how deeply we loved and worried about one another. That shared lifetime now feels unbearably short.

I sometimes wonder whether, without our wounds, we might have looked at one another longer, more gently, without pain. While living overseas, my mother and I were given the rare gift of nine full months together. During that time, we were almost inseparable, talking nearly twenty-four hours a day. Through those conversations, I came to know her more deeply.

She, too, was simply human—fragile like a child, wounded, unsure of how to live, longing for healing. Yet the burdens she carried were far too heavy. When I think of that, the tears return.

When I arrived at the airport and walked toward the exit, it did not feel real that this was my first visit in seven years. Faces that resembled my own passed by, and only then did I feel that I was truly in Korea. Yet at the security gate, I was reminded that I was now an American. This was my first return to Korea as a citizen of another country.

Time had continued to move forward. I struggled to survive within it, became someone else in the process, gathered countless experiences and memories, and returned carrying all of them. Upon arrival, my siblings and I moved quickly, almost mechanically, to prepare my mother’s funeral. We were grieving, but we had to send her off well. Soon, my mother was placed into a small box and returned to the earth. These impossible events passed with terrifying speed.

Living takes so much time. Leaving takes almost none. I pray that my mother, now free from pain, has found eternal rest in heaven. I am grateful that I was able to see her one last time. Living far away, I had often feared I would not make it in time. Though she has passed, I feel a quiet sense that she is still watching over me.

For fifty years, I was allowed to call her “Mom.” For that alone, I am endlessly grateful. She often apologized for not giving her children more, but truly, it was enough. In a harsh and difficult world, having someone I could call “Mom” gave me a strength beyond measure.

So I spoke my final truth to her as she rested in silence. I thanked her for letting me call her “Mom.” I told her how lonely, anxious, and heavy her years must have been. They could not have been easy. Yet she endured. She lived loudly, boldly, and without shrinking.
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She was human, but I will remember her vitality, her moments of hope and joy, the sparks of life she showed along the way. I am slowly gathering myself now. During the fifteen years of her illness, I prepared my heart countless times. I still cannot believe that it happened before the year ended, but I believe I can now let her go.
Please rest peacefully. May your body and heart no longer suffer. In that place without worry or burden, may you smile freely every day.