Walking Forward After Farewell

Walking Forward After Farewell

​After my mother’s funeral, I walked through the streets of Manhattan that hold so many memories. If we had been given more days together, there would have been so many more places I would have wanted to show her. But life is full of such lingering regrets. I stopped by a nearby cathedral and offered a quiet prayer for my mother.
Perhaps because this year is the Year of the Horse, a horse on the streets of Manhattan caught my eye. Slowly, my heart is beginning to accept reality. Having become independent at a young age and lived far from my mother in a foreign country for so many years, I do not have the luxury of remaining submerged in grief. I must keep moving forward.
My mother, too, left Korea when she was young and lived in Japan for many years. The stories she told me about survival in a foreign land stayed with me, and they helped me greatly when I later lived abroad myself. She always urged me to live intelligently and with strength. She told me to accept that life overseas is filled with challenges—things you cannot obtain, moments when words fail you, and the frustration of not being understood. Rather than resisting these realities, she encouraged me to accept them, to find interest and even joy in solving problems and achieving something within those constraints.
Perhaps because of that, I was able to navigate life in both Germany and the United States with resilience, facing each challenge one by one. In the end, I fulfilled a long-held dream of mine.
In truth, my mother did not want me to become an artist. She strongly opposed it, and eventually I gave up that path. But when I went to Germany, I finally found my own way. I became independent, held exhibitions, and invited my mother to see my paintings. That was one of the happiest moments of my life. After that, every time I painted, she would tell me how beautiful my work was.
Now, when I paint, the mother who once looked at my work with childlike delight is no longer by my side. Yet I believe that each time I paint, she is watching with that same quiet pride. When I look back on the past, everything feels like a dream. And within my now-calm heart, a quiet sense of gratitude gently settles.
We all pass through this finite journey of life, knowing that one day we must leave this world. In moments like this, I find myself thinking more seriously about what kind of life one should live. When I look around, I see that lives filled with love and sacrifice always leave traces behind.
In this limited time we are given, I want to live in a way that no moment passes in vain. I want to live with gratitude, and with love.