To My Mother
My mother is on the far left, dressed in red. The other three girls are not her friends. She is just smiling because there is a camera and the photographer might be a school teacher. My mother was in eighth grade, 16, and was usually the tallest amongst her classmates.
Her middle school was an all girl's school, and in eighth grade, the short temple haircuts and uniforms were thrown out the window once school policy allowed girls to wear their own clothes. In the picture, my mother is at a school field trip, which she couldn't enjoy because of one classmate. There was a rich girl at the school, and one day, she visited my mother's humble home, and stole clothes from her closet. My mom was a very innocent person, and she was shocked and confused. When she had to go to the field trip the very next day, her heart was throbbing out of anxiety, and she avoided the rich girl at all costs.
By the end of the month, the rich girl approached her, gave back her clothes, and asked my mother why she never asked about it. My mother didn’t really say anything in particular. My mother didn't want to talk to her anymore after that. The rich girl confessed that she was jealous because everyone liked my mom, so that she wanted to do something spiteful to hurt her and that she was sorry. My mom couldn't understand such a thing. I look at her face in the photo, and recognize her ability to be cold-faced, to be silent, and to have the brain sleep deep inside a pocket of nothingness when someone is talking to them. And the ability to laugh, pretend, and smile. For some reason, that small incident must have collapsed her sunny paradise and her perception of people.
My mother, naive and sensitive, was living in bliss, was a good middle school student, and was welcomed by many friends, because she was very kind. But afterwards, when high school became suddenly insanely mean and hard, she couldn’t bring herself to try anymore. The teachers were borderline abusive. Depression and mental illness was not even established in the medical books or heard of ever in Korea, so she just felt like a “walking ghost.”
It pains me to understand how hard it must have been for her, in her bed, not eating or moving until she met and married my dad and became a very busy housewife, bullied by her inlaws, coming from a poor background with no money, impressive education, or job. There were no antidepressants, no backup plan, and no other means for survival than studying your way up. The force of education, the grades, the students, her family, and the country was a world my mother couldn’t handle.
Let her do art, let her sing, let her do ballet, let her dance, let her fail, congratulate her, ask her, listen to her, medicate her, help her. Today, she works at a retail store, participates in a book club, sings in choir, exercises, eats like a 17 year old athlete, and shops for clothes and dresses elegantly. Looking at my mom’s face, I will live as I wish, to be mentally stable and to work as hard as I wish, to rest and labor as I see fit, and in return, I will finally know what it means to be alive when I can choose and act on my own behalf.
