Please Look After Mom - Kyung-Sook Shin [82]
I still didn’t want to take it, but Mom said, “It’s so when I die you can pick persimmons and think about me.”
Mom started saying “When I die …” more frequently. You know, that was her weapon for a long time. Her only weapon when it came to kids who didn’t do things the way she wanted them to. I don’t know when it started, but when she didn’t approve of something, Mom would say, “Do that after I die.” I brought the little persimmon tree to Seoul on the truck, although I didn’t know if it would survive, and buried the roots in the ground, as deep as Mom had marked on the tree. Later, when Mom came to Seoul, she said I’d planted it too close to the wall and that I should move it to another spot. She asked me often if I’d moved it. I said yes, even though I hadn’t. Mom wanted me to move the tree to an empty spot in the yard where I thought I could plant a big tree if I had enough money to buy this house. I didn’t really think I would move the little tree, which only had a couple of branches and now barely came up to my waist, but I answered yes. Before she went missing, she suddenly started calling every other day, asking, “Did you move the persimmon tree?” I just said, “I’ll do it later.”
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