A couple of months ago, a week away from the winter break, I was excited to go back to Korea. I called home, and asked my mother how things were. She said everything was fine, but told me that my grandmother was sick. She told me to pray for her. Oblivious of how serious her situation was, I just stayed in my bed, playing PSP.
As I arrived in Incheon International Airport a week later with my sister, my parents came to pick us up at 3:00 in the morning.
While heading back home in the car, my dad told me, “We have somewhere to go today.”
My sister asked, sanguinely assuming that we are going on some vacation, asked, “Where are we going?”
My dad turned to my mom and asked, “Did you not tell them?”
And my mom answered, “I couldn’t…”
s
My sister and I knew what was coming. On that day when I was playing PSP and worrying about the incomplete homework for the next day, my grandmother passed away from one of the most painful causes of death I could think of. I cannot put into words how sad we were and how much we were crying. Only two phrases were ringing in my head. She was such a nice person. She loved me so much.
s
My grandmother was North Korean who came to the South before the war broke out in 1950. As I felt guilty and helpless by the twelve thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean that had to separate me from seeing her for the last time before she passed away, she must have felt the same way by the 38th parallel which had left her separated from her family, friends and home. North and Sourth Korea is 223,170 square kilometer combined, and it takes less than a day to drive from the top of North Korea to bottom of the South. But the 38th parallel that has divided the two nations since 50 years ago still separates families and makes it impossible to even know whereabouts of one’s brother, sister, or parents, while it would only take a few hours to meet them if there were no border line..s
I remember my grandfather, who also came from North Korea, always cried every time our family went to his mother’s grave. The last time we went there with my grandfather was in 2005. He still cried, though it has been more than 40 years since my great-grandmother died. When I think of it now, I don’t think it was just the death of his mother that made him shed tears. It was the reminiscence of his distant memories with his friends, cousins, brothers, sisters, and his father, and the fact that they are all suffering from famine and oppression that made him cry.
Advertisement
