(Tribute 2) My Loving Father (7/31/1935-10/10/2020) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

I was able to visit South Korea last month to be with the spirit of my father who passed away about 20 months ago. I missed my father’s presence strongly. There was a hole in my heart, as if a big tree was uprooted. That would be what our loved ones do to the living when they die. My two week-long time spent with my mother and my two younger brothers (and their families) alongside a visit to my father’s grave comforted me. I am accepting that he has transformed. I feel I am surrounded by his warmth. The travel time including a few days before I left and after I returned home was a time of grace, a gift that my father sent to me. To say so is only an understatement. Death of loved ones snatches the bereaved and places them in the matriversal reality, WE/HERE/NOW.

I did not expect that the covid era was coming in 2019. At least, a time like that came too soon. No one in our family knew that we would send him off that way, alone in the hospital. We were not able to say a proper goodbye to him. The last phone conversation I had with him became a small remedy that held my grief pain bearable. I was absent during his funeral and at the first year anniversary of his death when my family conducted a ceremony at home. It felt like a train left without me. Or I could not get on the train where everyone else in my family was there. My flight in May was my ticket to get on that train.

I was biting my time to be there. And my time came. My youngest brother from overseas was visiting Korea. I knew that I needed to be there. My youngest brother was sweet at heart, having gently encouraged me to come. I took an opportunity to undertake a covid timespace travel. South Korea is strict with covid regulations. Vaccinations were done in time. I knew that I was required to take a covid test but wasn’t aware that there were different types of test. At the check-in counter at the airport, they found me having the wrong test and could or did not board me because of that. I insisted that I had to go as early as possible. They put me on the flight the following day. So I decided to spend overnight again at the airport, while taking the right kind of test during the day. Because my flight was 7AM, an inconvenient time to arrive at the airport, I had already stayed overnight at the departure area. On the second day, I thought I was going to fly. At the check-in counter, however, they found me not having the covid time visa required by the South Korean government and could not board me. I accepted it for the second time and was unusually calm. They put me on the flight schedule in two days. So I decided to come home. It was a day of such relief from the airport ordeal (I could not lie down for two days). That was a test on myself. I coped with it. What a sweet sleep I had on that night at home. While enjoying a day at home, I forgot to put on warm clothes for the chilly weather. I was coming down with a cold. I did not want people at the airport to mistake it for a covid infection. Upon leaving for the airport, I packed an electric heating pad to sit on over the night. And I minimized my activities other than using the internet, while trying to write an essay. Usually, I make my air travel time a writing time. No one knew that I had a cold. At the check-in counter, I passed and boarded the plane on the third time.

During those several days, I was informed that the first younger brother contracted covid. So our family gathering was postponed. On the day I arrived, my youngest brother confirmed that he contracted covid too. Then, it went to his wife, my sister-in-law. One had horrible symptoms, and the others had minor effects. So our previously made plans were hanging in the air. In a week or so, all of them recovered from it. Almost all things seemed uncertain for plans. That did not discourage me.

There was more to an airport sleeping. I arrived at the Incheon airport in the evening. There was no shuttle to get to my mother’s town. My youngest brother had informed me of that so I was not surprised. They had cut down the bus schedule drastically during the covid time, of course. We are witnessing the shift of the so-called public life under the pandemic phenomenon. I decided to spend the night at the Incheon airport, which was much easier than in the Los Angeles airport, and wanted to take advantage of taking another required covid test in the morning at the airport. I was not only amazingly calm but also began enjoying the challenge. So what? My cold was gone and I safely arrived in Korea! I could have been so upset as to seek ways to fight back authorities. I was different this time. It was a sacred journey that I was embarking, now come to think of it. I was seeing everything that was happening on the parts of the Korean government, the airline company, and covid policies, etc. but was unshaken at the core by those turmoils. I made it in the end. Everything was fine with me.

Spending as much time as possible with my mother was my plan. It was for everyone’s needs. My mother needed to see me, I needed to see her to help filling in the void in her heart/mind. And that worked perfectly. I was able to feel my father’s presence through my mother. I spent time with her but we were three in her apartment. I saw my mother in the depth of grieving, uncontrollable at times, from the loss of her beloved. She was a dedicated partner to him and a loving mother. After his death, I had wished that we, the bereaved (my mother, myself, and my two younger brothers with their families), would naturally make some positive meaning out of his death. I hoped that no one tried to teach anyone in the family that we should be good to each other. So I spoke few words to anyone in the family but listened to everyone during my stay in Korea. I began to say YES to each one and embraced them. My openness and respect for my mother and my brothers was the least thing that I could offer on behalf of my father’s spirit. My wishes came true during my visit. Our time together and constant chats online and by phone proved that we cared about each other and enjoyed interacting with each other.

Only after my father’s death, did I come to think of certain things about myself, which likely came from him. He told us long ago that he disliked certain family traditions (his life’s fortune was taken away at a young age by the accident of his father’s sudden death) so much so that he wished to discontinue them for his own family. I would say that he hated patriarchal ways, although he did not articulate it so or he may not agree with me. Indeed, he broke off some substantive conventions of Neo-Confucian Korean culture. One example was naming his children. For his sons, he did not follow the naming custom of his clan authority. He named me, his only daughter, Hye Sook, and was proud of me. And he was a proud man himself. He longed for freedom for himself and sought beauty and idealism. I inherited those qualities from him. I was able to see him in me. For example, I never felt comfortable with certain ways that other girls do while growing up. I pursued my own dream to the degree that I left Korea 34 years ago. Then, I became an individual with my own mind in the U.S. As a feminist, it was not difficult for me to disband external patriarchal ties once I recognized them. It was his legacy that carried me to this place, where and what I am now.

My brother drove my mother and me to the grave site of my father. My mind was sinking down in the car out of grief. As we approached the grave park, however, I could not but be amazed at the sight that I saw through the car window. The grave park extended to the whole valley with a number of hills enclosing a lake. A panoramic view of the site took me to a different world. Hundreds if not thousands tombs were making small mountains. Each grave had a tombstone and flowers in stone vases. It was my mother’s willpower that we would bury him on a hillside with warm sunshine. They chose this grave park together. She wishes to be buried next to him when her time comes. I had never seen such grave culture in Korea before. Of course, it is a modern version of the old. The warm afternoon sun was embracing countless tombs. I was reminded of the dolmen sites that I once visited in Korea. On a low hill by a valley in both places of Geochang and Hwasun, renowned dolmen sites, a large group of dolmens were lying in groups under the warm sun. I was elated by the scene. My grief was temporarily interrupted.

As we arrived at my father’s grave site, my emotion changed and I began to sob. As sobbing was becoming cries, I was left a bit behind by my brother and my mother. They allowed me to cry. I followed them. My father’s grave was on the lowest level looking up a beautiful and sunny hill. The warm sun was with him and he was with his new neighbors. My mother had prepared simple food offerings that he used to like, a Korean custom. I put new artificial flowers that my niece sent in the stone vases. My brother and I made deep bows (I followed his lead). After him, I poured the rice wine that my father used to enjoy drinking during his meals into his grave mound. As my sobbing crescendoed, my mother approached the tomb and put her back onto it and began keening. She was really genuine. It was the sight that startled me. I wasn’t ready to see that. My cries were interrupted. Without knowing, I told my mother that that would be too much and that she should stop wailing. And my mother scolded me. I became quiet. My brother must have seen that, he smiled. She was right. She did not have to negotiate her sorrow for anything. Only later did I realize that my mother acted upon the legacy of Korean women’s keening. I saw my paternal grandmother wailing at a funeral of my great-grandmother, when I was young. My mother had told me her own mother (my maternal grandmother) wailed upon the death of her husband (my grandfather). Koreans accept that keening is a release of han (suppressed resentments accumulated from life’s events under patriarchy). Someday when she heals from grieving, I will ask her about her keening, I am thinking. I might feel like wailing someday like her and my Korean ancestors.

I spent two weeks with my mother alone for the first time in my adult life. She and I befriended in the absence of my father. I refrained from a topic of my father in order not to trigger her grief but we both knew that we were three. My mother was very articulate about things this time. She told me that she and my father shared all the things that they had kept inside to each other. From childhood stories to the hard things that life threw at them. They were preparing for the farewell. I was there for her to sort out things for herself. My mother took on his interest in taking care of potted plants. I saw him in her. We ate the food my father used to eat. We watched some TV programs that he used to like. My mother commented on similar remarks that my father used to say. They both watched the same programs after all. She gave me my father’s vest to wear, when I needed warm clothes. She gave me his purse to use when I needed to buy a purse. I slept in his bed for most nights when I did not sleep next to her. Oh, she gave me one of the two photos of me taken at my university graduation that my father used to carry in his wallet.

I learned a lot of new things about my mother. I came to understand why she called me every 2 to 3 days after the death of my father. She was afraid that I would not return to Korea or leave her behind. I never indicated such to anyone in the family. My family had accepted that I lived my life independently. While being abroad, I used to be absent in major events of the family. Unlike other members of my family, I used to say things from the heart without considering how others would receive them, which hurt her. I have a history of leaving home “for good.” Not because I hated my family but because I was so determined to pursue my heart’s wish, which was to leave behind problematic worldly matters to feel peace in heart. She told me this time that she had almost believed that I would not return to Korea, after I left for the U.S. for the second time to enroll in a graduate program. That was about 25 years ago. I did not visit Korea for the first three years then in order to focus on my study in feminism and religion. For those years when I forgot about my parents, they did not forget me. I knew that her fear was my father’s fear as well. I was able to draw dots about certain things she did or said from my childhood. Her love for each member of our family including her daughter-in-laws and three grandchildren was the source of her happiness. This time, I spotted her eyes sparkling with joy when the whole family gathered and had a good time together. She was healthy and full of life in the mind. So I commented to everyone that she would live a long life. She is almost always cheering at the sight of her children. Loving her family has been her spiritual practice; No one can teach that to anyone but one must pick that up for oneself. I teased her that she was almost a saint! I was right to repeat that she was and is an eternal optimist. Her love melted my heart/mind especially during this visit. My father was a lucky man who was loved by my mother to the end of this world.

I would like to write the third tribute to my father at a right time.

Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/