Kyung-sook Shin

always stayed in the same place until I stopped needing you. Thank you for staying in the same place. I might have been able to go on living because of that. I’m sorry for going to see you every time I felt unsettled, but not even letting you hold my hand. Even though I went to you, when it seemed like you were coming to me I acted unkindly.

old things are all mixed in with current things, and current things mingle with future things, and future things are combined with old things; it’s just that we can’t feel it. But now I can’t go on.

I will let go of you now. You were my secret. You were in my life, someone whose presence would never be guessed by anyone who knew me. Even though nobody knew that you were in my life, you were the person who brought a raft at every rapid current and helped me cross that water safely. I was happy that you were there. I came to tell you that I was able to travel through my life because I could come to you when I was anxious, not when I was happy.

I’m going to go now.

I could feel that it was approaching, the day when I wouldn’t be able to recognize anything because I would be numb.

Oh, I don’t know where to stop these memories, the memories that are sprouting all over the place like spring greens. Everything I forgot about is rushing back. From the rice bowls on the kitchen shelf to the big and little clay jars on the condiment ledge, from the narrow wooden stairs to the attic to the pumpkin vines spreading thick under the dirt wall, climbing up.

When spring comes, please plant some flowers in the yard, and rub down the floors, and fix the roof that collapsed from the snow.

Did Mom know? That I, too, needed her my entire life?

Everyone was slowly becoming the son, daughter, and husband whose mom and wife was missing. Even without Mom, daily life continued.

When you write July 24,

Sometimes a kind word can encapsulate love like a seed buried in the soil