Sister. Not until yesterday, with the baby on my back, did I take a cab to So-orung and buy powdered chicken droppings, dig a hole on the spot Mom had pointed out, and move the persimmon tree there. I hadn’t felt at all bad when I didn’t listen to her and failed to move that tiny persimmon tree away from the wall, but now I was surprised. When I first brought the tree here, the roots were so scrawny that I kept looking at it, doubting that it could even grow in the ground, but when I dug it up to move it, its roots had already spread far underground, tangled. I was impressed with its grit for life, its determination to survive somehow in the barren earth. Did she mean to give me the tree so that I could watch its branches multiply and its trunk thicken? Was it to tell me that if I wanted to see fruit I had to take good care of it? Or maybe she just didn’t have money to buy a big tree. For the first time, I felt attached to that persimmon tree. My doubts that it could ever have fruit disappeared.
Do you remember asking me a while ago to tell you something that only I knew about Mom? I told you I didn’t know Mom. All I knew was that Mom was missing. It’s the same now. I especially don’t know where her strength came from. Think about it. Mom did things that one person couldn’t do by herself. I think that’s why she became emptier and emptier. Finally, she became someone who couldn’t find any of her kids’ houses. I don’t recognize myself, feeding my kids and brushing their hair and sending them to school, unable to go look for Mom even though she’s missing. You said I was different, unlike other young moms these days, that there was a small part of me that’s a little bit like her, but, sister, no matter what, I don’t think I can be like Mom. Since she went missing, I often think: Was I a good daughter? Could I do the kind of things for my kids she did for me?
I know one thing. I can’t do it like she did. Even if I wanted to. When I’m feeding my kids, I often feel annoyed, burdened, as if they’re holding on to my ankles. I love my kids, and I am moved-wondering, did I really give birth to them? But I can’t give them my entire life like Mom did. Depending on the situation, I act as if I would give them my eyes if they need them, but I’m not Mom. I keep wishing the baby would hurry and grow up. I feel that my life has stalled because of the kids. Once the baby’s a little older, I’m going to send him to day care, or find someone to sit with him, and go to work. That’s what I’m going to do. Because I have my life, too. When I realized this about myself, I wondered how Mom did it the way she did, and discovered that I didn’t really know her. Even if we say her situation made her think only about us, how could we have thought of Mom as Mom her entire life? Even though I’m a mother, I have so many dreams of my own, and I remember things from my childhood, from when I was a girl and a young woman, and I haven’t forgotten a thing. So why did we think of Mom as a mom from the very beginning? She didn’t have the opportunity to pursue her dreams and, all by herself, faced everything the era dealt her, poverty and sadness, and she couldn’t do anything about her very bad lot in life other than suffer through it and get beyond it and live her life to the very best of her ability, giving her body and her heart to it completely. Why did I never give a thought to Mom’s dreams?
Sister.
I wanted to shove my face into the hole I dug for the persimmon tree. If I can’t live like Mom, how could she have wanted to live like that? Why did this thought never occur to me when she was with us? Even though I’m her daughter, I had no idea, so how alone must she have felt with other people? How unfair is it that all she did was sacrifice everything for us, and she wasn’t understood by anyone?
Sister. Do you think we’ll be able to be with her again, even if it’s just for one day? Do you think I’ll be given the time to understand Mom and hear her stories and console her for her old dreams that are buried somewhere in the pages of time? If I’m given even a few hours, I’m going to tell her that I love all the things she did, that I love Mom, who was able to do all of that, that I love Mom’s life, which nobody remembers. That I respect her.
Sister, please don’t give up on Mom, please find Mom.
Your sister must not have been able to write the date or a goodbye. The letter has round blotches on it, as if she’d been crying as she wrote it. Your eyes linger over the yellowed spots; then you fold the letter and put it back in your purse. As your sister was writing the letter, her youngest, who had probably been eating something off the floor under the table, may have come to her and clumsily started to sing the children’s song that starts, “Mommy Bear…,” hanging on to her. Your sister may have looked at her baby, although with a dark expression, and sung for him, “… is slim!” The baby, who would not have understood his mom’s emotions, may have grinned broadly, and said “Daddy Bear…,” waiting for your sister to finish the verse. Your sister may have finished it, “is fat!” Your sister may not have been able to write the end to her letter. The baby, trying to climb up your sister’s leg, may have fallen down, bumping his head on the floor. And the baby would have burst into desperate-sounding sobs. Your sister, seeing the bluish bruise spreading on the baby’s soft skin, may have then spilled the tears she had been holding back.
You fold the letter and put it in your purse, and the guide’s passionate voice echoes in your ears. “The highlight of this museum is the Creation of Adam, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which we will see at the end. Michelangelo hung from a beam on the ceiling for four years as he worked on the fresco, and later in life, his eyesight became so weak that he couldn’t read or see pictures unless he went outside. Frescoes are made with lime plaster, so they had to finish before the plaster set. If they couldn’t do the work, which would normally take about a month, in one day, the plaster set and they had to do it again. Because he had to hang from the ceiling like that for four years, it’s understandable that he had problems with his neck and back for the rest of his life.”
The last thing you did at the airport before you boarded the plane was to call your father. After Mom disappeared, your father went back and forth between his house and Seoul, but he went home for good in the spring. You called him every day, in the morning or sometimes at night. Father picked up the phone after one ring, as if he was waiting by it. He would say your name before you told him it was you. This was something Mom always did. She would be pulling weeds in the flower garden, and when the phone rang, she would say to Father, “Answer the phone, it’s Chi-hon!” When you asked how she could tell who was calling, Mom shrugged and would say, “I just… I just know.” Living in the empty house by himself, without Mom, Father could now tell it was you, from the first ring. You told Father that you might not be able to call for a while, since you would have to think about when he would be awake to call from Rome. Father suddenly said, as if he wasn’t listening to you carefully, that he should have let Mom get surgery for sinus empyema.
“Mom had pain in her nose, too?” you asked, your voice dull, and Father said that Mom couldn’t sleep when the seasons changed because she would be coughing. He said, “It’s my fault. It was because of me that your mom didn’t have time to look after herself.” On any other day, you would have said, “Father, it’s nobody’s fault,” but on that day, the words “Yes, it’s your fault” jumped out of your mouth. Father drew in his breath sharply on the other end of the phone. He didn’t know you were calling from the airport.