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By Root 383 0

a week, but there were complications when she had you, and she stayed in the hospital for more than a month. I looked after your mom back then. When your other grandmother came to visit at the hospital, you cried and your grandmother told your mom to breastfeed you, to stop your crying. Watching your mom put you to her breast even though she didn’t have any milk, I glared at you, just a newborn. I even sent your other grandmother away and grabbed you from your mom’s arms and smacked your bottom. People say that when a baby is crying the paternal grandmother will say, “The baby is crying, you should feed her,” and the maternal grandmother will say, “Why is that baby crying so much, making her mom so tired?” I was exactly like that. You couldn’t have remembered it, but you liked your other grandmother more than me. When you saw me you said, “Hello, Grandmother!” But when you saw your other grandmother, you called out “Grandma!” and ran into her arms. I felt guilty every time, thinking you must know that I smacked your bottom soon after you were born.

You’ve grown so pretty.

Look at your thick head of black hair. Each of your braids is a fistful of hair. It’s the same as when your mom was little. I was never able to braid your mom’s hair. Your mom wanted long hair, but I always cut it in a bob. I didn’t have time to seat her on my lap and brush her hair. Your mom must be playing out her childhood wishes for long braided hair through you. She’s looking at me, but her hand is playing with your hair. Your mom’s eyes are clouding over. Oh dear, she’s thinking about me again.

Listen, dear. Can you hear me in all this noise? I came to apologize to you.

Please forgive me for the face I made when you came back to Seoul with the third baby in your arms. The day you looked at me with shock on your face, blurting out “Mom!” has been weighing on my heart. Why was it? Was it because you didn’t plan to have a third baby? Or was it because you were embarrassed to tell me that you had a third baby, when your older sister wasn’t even married yet? For whatever reason, you hid the fact that you’d had a third baby in that faraway land, instead suffering through morning sickness all by yourself, and only when you were about to give birth did you tell us that you were having a baby. I didn’t do anything to help when you had the baby, but when you came back, I said to you, “What were you thinking? What were you thinking, three babies?”

I’m sorry, dear. I apologize to the baby and to you. It’s your life, and you’re my daughter, my daughter with the amazing ability to concentrate when you solve problems. Of course you would find a solution for your situation. I forgot who you were for a second and said that to you. I’m also sorry for all the faces I made without even knowing it, every time I saw you after you came back from America. You were so busy. I visited you once in a while, and you were always busy chasing after the children. You were picking up clothes, feeding them, pulling up a fallen child, taking the book bag of the child who came home from school, hugging the child who ran into your arms calling “Mom!” You were busy making things for the children to eat the day before you went into surgery to have a cyst removed from your womb. You wouldn’t know how sad it made me, when I was at your house to look after the children and opened the door of the fridge. Four days’ worth of the children’s food was stacked neatly in the fridge. You explained to me, “Mom, give them the stuff on the top shelf tomorrow, then give them what’s under that the next day …,” while your eyes were sunk deeply in your face. You are that kind of person. The kind of person who has to do everything with your own hands. That’s why I said, “What were you thinking?” when you had the third baby. The night before your surgery, I picked up the clothes you’d taken off and left outside the bathroom while you took a shower. There were drops of plum juice on your shirt, which had frayed sleeves, and the seam of your baggy pants was ripped, and your old bra straps had millions