Please Look After Mom - Kyung-Sook Shin [86]
After your mom went missing, you developed impulsive behaviors. You drank impulsively, and you would impulsively take a train down to your parents’ home in the country. You stared at the ceiling of your studio, unable to sleep, then got up and ran around the streets of Seoul, pasting flyers, whether it was in the middle of the night or at dawn. You once burst into the police station and screamed at them to find your mom. Hyong-chol came to the police station after receiving a call, and just stared at you. “Find Mom!” you screamed at your brother, who at a certain point had started to accept Mom’s absence, sometimes even going golfing.
Your scream was both a protest against people who knew Mom and hatred for yourself, who hadn’t been able to find her. Your brother calmly listened to your shrieking attacks: “How can you be like this? Why aren’t you finding Mom? Why? Why!”
All your brother could do was to walk the city with you at night. You would search underground concourses, wearing the mink coat that you took from Mom’s closet and brought with you last winter, or with the coat slung over your arm—so that you could drape it on Mom, who was last seen wearing summer clothes, when you found her. Your shadow holding the mink coat would be cast on the marble buildings as you walked among the sleeping homeless who were using newspaper or ramen crates as blankets. You kept your phone on all the time, but now nobody called to say they had seen someone who looked like Mom.
One day, you went to Seoul Station, to the spot where Mom was left behind, and bumped into your eldest brother, who was standing there aimlessly. You sat together, watching the subway trains come and go, until service ended for the night. He said that at first when he sat there like that he thought Mom would appear and tap him on the shoulder and say, “Hyong-chol!” But now he didn’t think that was going to happen. He mentioned that he didn’t think anymore, that the inside of his head was blank. That when he doesn’t want to go home right away after work, he finds himself coming to the station.
One holiday, you went to his house. You saw your brother get out of the car with his golf clubs and screamed, “You asshole!” and made a scene. If even your brother accepts Mom’s disappearance, who in the world is going to find her? You grabbed his clubs and threw them on the ground. Everyone was slowly becoming the son, daughter, and husband whose mom and wife was missing. Even without Mom, daily life continued.
Another time, you went back in the early morning to the spot where Mom had gone missing, and you again bumped into your brother. From behind, you grabbed him in a hug as he stood in the dawn light. He said that maybe it was only her children who thought of Mom’s life as being filled with pain and sacrifice, because of our guilt. We might actually be diminishing her life as something useless. To his credit, he remembered something Mom always said, even when the smallest positive thing happened: “I’m thankful! It’s something we should be grateful for!” Mom expressed gratitude for the small moments of happiness that everyone experienced. Your brother said that Mom’s gratitude came from the heart, that she was thankful about everything, that someone who was so grateful couldn’t have led an unhappy life. When you said goodbye, your brother said he was afraid that Mom wouldn’t recognize him even if she came back. You told him that, for Mom, he was the most precious person in the world, that Mom would always recognize him, no matter where he was or how he changed. When he was drafted into the army and entered training camp, there was a day when parents were invited to visit. Mom made rice cakes and carried them on her head to see Hyong-chol, with you in tow. Even though hundreds of soldiers were wearing the same clothes and demonstrating the same taekwondo moves, she was able to pick out your brother. To you, they all looked the same, but Mom smiled a great big smile and pointed: “There’s your brother!”
For once, you were peacefully talking about Mom