>>pk@columbia

3.3.02 - Graceful Birth

Tomorrow will be the first birthday I will not have celebrated at home. Well, college is my home now, but it'll be the first birthday in which my family will be absent. So my birthday was celebrated prematurely this year, in the back of my parents' store on a Saturday afternoon during our lunch break. My mom, who doesn't come to the store when I'm there working, made an appearance around 2 o'clock in the afternoon and brought with her some Korean food delicately prepared by my grandma. Meeyuk guk - good stuff and a MUST for Koreans on their birthday was the main feature; my dad and I ate the traditional algae soup with pork, some fresh oyster kimchi, and oyster cakes while my mom watched on with a nice smile. My parents and I, in the midst of all the angst and bad fortune in recent weeks, found refuge in this mealtime.

It seems like there are a few things that are always repeated on someone's birthday in my family. Whenever it's my mother's birthday and I carry out the traditional task of getting her cake and my family sits around to eat it, my grandma always, always remarks about the time when I was in 5th grade - when I rode my bike about 2 miles to a pastry shop on a hot June day and bought my mom's birthday cake - a vanilla creme one with mango and tangerine in and on it - and it was the best tasting cake ever. My grandma never seems to forget how it tasted that day, and my mother's birthday will never be the same unless that remark is made. Well, what is often repeated on my birthday is by my dad. He likes to take a moment after eating cake, and looking at my mother smiling as she gazes at me, he says, "The happiest time in your mother's life was just after you were born." The comment may be one of those things that could be said to any son or daughter to make him or her feel special on a birthday, but I can assure you, my dad means much more when he says that.

I lived in a small farming community in Korea when I was born. My dad was the reverend of the village and our house was located on the highest hill in the town. From where we lived, we could see the entire village. Our house was surrounded by wild flowers (I've seen pictures), a big willow tree, and we even had a dog! The only memory I have from this time is when I walked on a rice paddy with some older kids in the winter, and I remember a thin sheet of ice formed on top of the soil. I also remember the cows I used to walk by whenever I visited a friend's house. My mom told me of this big stone she used to sit on, even when she was pregnant. She said she would look out into the open and spend many hours just thinking about things. When I was born, my parents said it was truly bliss - a baby son, a wonderful home, and they were a young, loving couple.

I remember coming across a picture of my mom sitting on the willow tree looking like she was forcing a smile, but with an air of saddness. On the back of the photo, my mom had written some things about not being able to stop crying inside. At the time, I had no idea of what she meant by that. I thought those were supposed to be happy times. It wasn't until I was in 4th grade, when this girl at my dad's then-church, came up to me and said, "You could've had two sisters!" I was puzzled at what she told me, and she explained that I had a baby sister who died when she was little and my sister Dawn was born afterwards. I scoffed at such a tragic idea: "What are you talking about? I would know if I had a sister that died," I replied, with much skepticism. Later that night, I inquired my mom about what the girl had told me. My mom acted surprised that I didn't know. "Oh - you don't remember at all? Eunhye, she died when she was a few months old. Don't you know?" Nope. I had no clue.

So yesterday, having said the usual remark about the happiest time of my mother's life and reliving the moments when there were green hills, pretty gardens, the willow tree, and a big thinking stone, I made a vague connection from my deceased sister's name to my sister's name. My sister's Korean name is Da-eun. So I asked my dad to clarify Dawn's Korean name. "'Da,' means 'again' and 'more' in Sino-Korean terms," my dad explained, "so 'Da-Eun' can signify the rebirth of Eunhye, your other sister." My new gained knowledge had an eery feel to it, but I guess it just gives Dawn a reason to feel more special; though her birth did not eradicate the tragedy of Eunhye (she would be "Grace" in English), it did bring happiness to the family again.

This year's birthday is all the more special because I have a better sense of what my birth must have signified nineteen years ago. I was born into paradise and my birth was in itself a part of the paradise for my parents. And for the hour or so in the back of our store, sitting on the steel folding chairs, looking at each other, and taking turns talking, laughing, and at times just enjoying the comfortable moments silence, I believe we relived a bit of that paradise.