My mom only had one eye. I hated her… she was such an embarrassment. My mom ran a small shop at a flea market. She collected little weeds and such to sell…anything for the money that we needed, she was such an embarrassment.
There was this one day during elementary school. I remember that it
was field day, and my mom came. I was so embarrassed. How could she
do this to me? I threw her a hateful look and ran out. The next day
at school…”Your mom only has one eye?!” and they taunted me. I
wished that my mom would just disappear from this world, so I said
to my mom, “Mom, why don’t you have the other eye?! You’re only
going to make me a laughingstock. Why don’t you just die?” My mom
did not respond.
I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, it felt good to
think that I had said what I’d wanted to say all this time. Maybe it
was because my mom hadn’t punished me, but I didn’t think that I had
hurt her feelings very badly. That night…I woke up, and went to
the kitchen to get a glass of water. My mom was crying there, so
quietly, as if she was afraid that she might wake me. I took a look
at her, and then turned away.
Because of the thing I had said to her earlier, there was something
pinching at me in the corner of my heart. Even so, I hated my mother
who was crying out of her one eye. So I told myself that I would
grow up and become successful, because I hated my one-eyed mom and
our desperate poverty. Then I studied really hard. I left my mother
and came to Seoul and studied, and got accepted in the Seoul
University with all the confidence I had. Then, I got married. I
bought a house of my own. Then I had kids, too. Now I’m living
happily as a successful man.
I like it here because it’s a place that doesn’t remind me of my
mom. This happiness was getting bigger and bigger, when someone
unexpected came to see me “What?! Who’s this?!” …It was my
mother…Still with her one eye. It felt as if the whole sky was
falling apart on me. My little girl ran away, scared of my mom’s
eye. And I asked her, “Who are you? I don’t know you!!!” as if he
trying to make that real.
I screamed at her “How dare you come to my house and scare my daughter! GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!!!” And to this, my mother quietly answered, “oh, I’m so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address,” and she disappeared. Thank good ness… she doesn’t recognize me. I was quite relieved. I told myself that I wasn’t going to care, or think about this for the rest of my life.
Then a wave of relief came upon me…one day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to my house. I lied to my wife saying that I was going on a business trip. After the reunion, I went down to the old shack, that I used to call a house…just out of curiosity there, I found my mother fallen on the cold ground. But I did not shed a single tear. She had a piece of paper in her hand…. it was a letter to me.
She wrote:
My son…
“I think my life has been long enough now. And… I won’t visit Seoul anymore… but would it be too much to ask if I wanted you to come visit me once in a while? I miss you so much. And I was so glad when I heard you were coming for the reunion. But I decided not to go to the school…. For you…
I’m sorry that I only have one eye, and I was an embarrassment for you. You see, when you were very little, you got into an accident, and lost your eye. As a mother, I couldn’t stand watching you having to grow up with only one eye… so I gave you mine… I was so proud of my son that was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye. I was never upset at you for anything you did.
The couple times that you were angry with me. I thought to myself, ‘it’s because he loves me.’ I miss the times when you were still young
around me.
I miss you so much. I love you. You mean the world to me
My world shattered!!!
Then I cried for the person who lived for me… My MOTHER
A WONDERFUL MOTHER
GOD made a wonderful mother,
A mother who never grows old;
He made her smile of the sunshine,
And He molded her heart of pure gold;
In her eyes He placed bright shining stars,
In her cheeks, fair roses you see;
God made a wonderful mother,
And He gave that dear mother to me.
Leave a Reply