To Be Blessed

Index
Yesterday my aunt, mother, and I arrived in BuSan. This is the home of my mother. It is where my story began with my mother meeting my father. The hustle and bustle of the city, the eight-lane highway—nothing even remotely resembles the stories of my mother's life.

The train we traveled on weaved its way through the mountains, around hills and valleys, into the city, and gently landed us in the midst of a massive crowd where I was afraid we might lose each other. As we exited, I saw my uncle, who once was the precious child that would continue my grandfather’s massive estate, farm, and orchards. I remembered his face. He was the only relative of my mother’s I saw much as a child. We had left him and his new bride 42 years ago. Today I saw a frail old man and his wife. He has delicate health, and his wife has suffered much illness for the last 30 years.

So many years ago, my grandfather left a will to his three sons. My oldest uncle, my mother’s brother, inherited the most and best. The remainder was split between my two uncles from the second grandmother. My uncle, Sang Jeng, was a son that any parent would be proud of. He was sent to the best schools and excelled beyond all expectation. He also exhibits high human virtue and dignity. He became a professor, much respected and revered. He lived humbly when he did not have to. After retiring from his professorship, he wanted to continue his teaching career by starting a school to educate and train so many hopeful students to help them enter esteemed universities, land difficult-to-get jobs, and to fulfill dreams and hopes outside of formal school institutions. It was a big project requiring massive amounts of investment and support personnel. He found a business manager who was capable of creating and handling the project by seeking experts. My Uncle Sang-Jeng was the investor and to be one of many instructors. Fifteen years ago, my uncle experienced what every investor fears. The manager he hired took all of his investment and disappeared from the face of the earth. My uncle had sold everything for this dream. He was left with nothing. My aunts tell me that if he had done nothing, the land he owned would have made him wealthy beyond imagination in land-hungry Korea.

We came to his home. He is living with his son, his son’s wife, and their three young children. The home is humble, yet I saw something so precious. His daughter-in-law serves him and his wife with an attentiveness and care that is rare in today’s Korea (my aunt Won-Suk tells me there is no daughter-in-law like what she sees in my uncle Sang-Jeng's daughter in law.) My uncle and aunt love their grandchildren as only grandparents can. Little Jun-Ho, their five-year-old grandson, eats, sleeps, and plays with his grandmother and grandfather. Life must be hard for the young wife serving and caring for this family of seven. In Korea, how you care for parents requires much attentiveness, respect, and reverence which I am told is lost in today’s modern age. Yet my uncle and aunt are experiencing what has been lost.

I offered my help to the young wife, but in accordance with tradition, she would not allow me to help her. I told her, “In America, guests help out.” With much reluctance, she allowed me to wash the dishes.