Work Text:
THE SEOUL TIMES
July 7, 2082
THE FAMILY
Or: How My Mothers Loved
BY DANTE JINYOUNG SHON
When The Seoul Times offered me a chance to write a piece to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Korea, I was not thinking of this piece at all. Even though I was aware of the reason why I was approached, I was thinking of writing a piece more on the political spectrum that had developed since. I also had to mention that I had declined their similar offer for the 20th anniversary of the legalization, for at that time I believed I was ill-equipped to write on the subject I more often than not doubted and criticized in my own work. However, last year life happened to me in ways that I felt there’s no better time to accept the offer and write on the singular reason I was offered this chance: my mothers.
My mothers, for those not in the know, were Seungwan Shon and Joohyun Bae. Both of them are deceased. Seungwan was Wendy, the singer who performed at the opening ceremony of the 2030 Winter Olympic in Gangwon, then-South Korea, the home country of both my mothers. Years later, she performed at the closing ceremony of the 2038 Summer Olympic in Vancouver, making her the first person to sing for two countries and under two nationalities in the history of the Games. My birth mother Joohyun, also known as Irene, used to be in the same music act with Seungwan, but she retired earlier, lived relatively far from the spotlight, became active in the literary scene of the Korean diaspora, and by 2042 had followed Seungwan to live in Canada.
Seungwan was “Mom” and Joohyun was “Eomma.” Eomma had me when she was in her early forties, Mom in her late thirties. Both of them spoke Korean with me at home, but Mom often switched to English, especially when Eomma wasn’t around. Like many immigrants, my mothers embraced life in their adopted country with caution, Eomma even more so than Mom, who had spent some of her formative years in Minnesota and Toronto before she started her singing career in Korea. By the time Eomma settled in Canada, we had been a family who lived in a farmhouse in Meaford, ON. Non-traditional, but a family still. Mom had already had her Canadian citizenship back then, Eomma following about six years later, just a few months before her fiftieth birthday.
In a few, rare occasions where they were photographed with me in public, it was almost always snapped with cameras that risked infringing our privacy by people who came across us as we were out and about, mostly in Greater Toronto. The only public material they made with me in it was a short singing video on Mom’s YouTube channel where she covered her former labelmate and senior Yoona Lim’s To You, a birthday gift for Yoona. In the video, which was shot at home, I was almost a year old, strapped to Eomma’s front, sleeping in her arms while she patted my back gently and Mom sang. It was dubbed “the video that broke Korea,” which I guess because it was their only authorized statement of going public with their relationship, even though the shot neither showed their faces or mine.
My mothers did their best to make sure I had a normal childhood. Even though I was homeschooled for most, they enrolled me in as many neighborhood activities as I could. I also suspect that they, perhaps, tried to compensate for the overabundance of ovaries in my life by signing me up in tons of sport groups. I did soccer, baseball, hockey, golf, and taekwondo, the last being the one I disliked the most if only because I always ended being roughened up due to my small stature.
Eomma regularly brought Mom’s home baked goods to my practice, and to my embarrassment many of my peers were mesmerized by her. One time, a sparring partner kicked me a little too hard on the ribs, and Eomma was ready to jump over the fence to have A Word with my coach. The sparring partner apologized profusely to “our dearest Mrs Shon, most graceful and beautiful.” I used the chance to tell her I wanted to quit taekwondo. Eomma readily agreed. “Well, I guess that’s one less testosterone-injecting session for you, then,” Mom commented. At a glance, Eomma was the strict mother and Mom was the fun mother, although that wasn’t always the case.
Like many immigrant children, as a teen I found that connecting with and nurturing your root was the rage. I was proud of being a Canadian of Korean descent. Of Mom, who had navigated a dramatic change of career direction—from teen pop to serious pop, from singing in Korean to singing in English and, a few times, French—and managed to remain afloat. Of Eomma, who seemed to remain unfazed in the face of adversaries caused by the turnaround from flashy idolhood to near anonymity. I wasn’t, however, proud of the way they sheltered me from knowing who they were in Korea.
-.-.-
Just like my mothers, Korea had undergone gradual changes—for the better. Last year marked the 15th anniversary of the Korean reunification, but back in my mothers’ active years as idols, it was of two feuding sovereign states. Politically, South was America’s underling, North that of Russia and China. Socioeconomically, only South Korea could let performers like my mothers have a career as idols. In their 20’s and 30’s, they were part of the group Red Velvet, whose music traverses between loud, experimental pop and silky, old-school RnB.
As idols, they signed a contract with an overarching agency which at once was a record label, a talent management, and a media overlord. They had fans and stans, a term used to refer to militant fans, who planned their finance around what merch of the band they could buy, what concerts or fan-meetings they could attend, who they would send gifts to, and who they would wage war for on social media. They also had haters and antis. Mom was always a critics’ darling, but in the first half of Red Velvet’s métier, haters and antis gave her quite a hard time. On the other hand, Eomma turned overnight from Korea’s sweetheart to a pariah after quitting the group at the height of their popularity. Many took offense of her exit and thought of it as a betrayal and cowardice.
Mom stayed in Red Velvet for some good fifteen years, although the group never technically disbanded. Eomma cited personal matters as her reason for quitting. Eomma never explicitly admitted it, not even to her closest friends, but everyone with eyes could see that her reason was Mom. It couldn’t not be Mom.
A year after Eomma’s exit from the group, Mom’s practically all over the place. She was an evening radio DJ, a regular MC for any special shows that featured a foreign act who’s currently touring Korea, and, after her Academy Award nomination for the original soundtrack of Christopher Nolan’s movie Antarctica, a globally known singer. It was as if she took Eomma’s exit as a personal blow and poured herself into work to help forget the pain. In a sense, her ache dulled into a phantom pain, and they managed to remain cordial to one another even in the most turbulent period of their relationship.
Long story short, Mom then had a chance to work Stateside, which would require her to leave Korea for some time. She didn’t want it because of—duh—Eomma. Leaving Korea meant not seeing Eomma. Eomma then took matters into her own hand and delivered another blow, this time in person, and practically forced Mom to choose the road often taken that spelled CAREER without, again, telling Mom why. That’s two below-the-belt hits in a row, and Mom was so livid that she confronted Eomma about it. “It was the only time I yelled at her,” Mom told me. Afterward, insert some reunion, some heart-to-heart revelation, and a mutual agreement to be honest with each other here, and the rest was history.
I didn’t discover all these past trajectories of theirs until I was in the ninth grade, and even that wasn’t planned at all. What I, and most people, don’t know was that their dynamic also took its toll on Eomma’s familial relationship, which remained strained until her parents’ passing. I’m not sure if it’s because Eomma’s family didn’t approve of Mom, or if it’s the clash between the idealized Confucian values of family and the newer ones, or if it’s simply latent homophobia. What I do know is that Eomma rarely, if ever, spoke about her family.
Hence imagine my surprise when one fateful day I was approached by a woman who looked like Eomma, only older and sadder, just as I exited the gate of my high school. She introduced herself as Sohee Bae, Eomma’s older sister, and that’s when my adolescent angst began. “Child, you really look like Joohyun,” she told me, tearful and awed at the same time, sitting across me in a café near school. I’d heard similar assessments so often, although I did know since early on that Eomma was my birth mother and that Mom adopted me long before they officially registered themselves in a marriage. I’d always been a Shon since I was two years old, and it was the first time I heard the assessment from someone who was related to Eomma.
Canada was, up to that day, all Shon-colored. As I’ve mentioned, I prized and kept my root. I did it through my grandparents, Jinyoung and Yoonsil Shon. Through Grandpa’s two brothers, one a dissident that had to flee the country for his involvement in the anti-dictatorship Gwangju Uprising and another a grumpy bore whose only daughter was also an idol like my mothers. Through Mom’s elder sister, Seunghee Shon, whom I still miss dearly to this day, who was times and again Mom’s confidante, guardian figure, and role model, and whose passing changed all of us. Through my great-grandfather, Shimin Jang, who always poked fun at Grandpa Shon by saying, “Nothing good’s ever comin’ from a Shon boy. Last time I met one, he stole my princess.” The only Bae I knew was Eomma.
“We’ve tried for years,” Sohee told me. “Regrets—yes, yes, we’ve had a lot. About the way we treated Joohyun and—uh—” (I was thinking she would say ‘your other mother’) “—Shon Seungwan. Our parents—they weren’t ready to accept it back then. I wasn’t either, and I will forever regret my lack of supports when Joohyun needed me the most. We tried to reach out. To see you. To apologize, too. But Joohyun blocked us left, right, and center.”
Sohee’s explanation made me so angry, angrier than I’d ever been, at Eomma. I’d always thought that she wasn’t too keen on bringing up her family since they were long gone. Here I was thinking it was her way of coping with the loss, and it turned out it wasn’t that. The Baes made a mistake, a grave one, but their remorse was real and they tried to make amends. Sixteen years old me believed that Eomma had denied me my direct link to Korea, and I lost a big link to my cultural roots because of that. At that time, I wanted the snobbery that came from the ability to say I had relatives in Korea. I didn’t want to merely be a son of prodigal immigrants.
Now I must mention here that anger wasn’t a familiar emotion my family often dealt with. Being truly angry means letting your emotions overcome you. Mom was a conflict-avoidant to a tee, to the point that she didn’t mind appearing as a pushover among her friends so long everyone would hug and sang kumbaya at the end of the day. Her mantra before reacting in anger to anything was always “Is my anger justified in this situation?” I used to be so baffled by her temperament, especially after knowing that the number of people she’d ever gotten angry at could be counted with one hand, with Eomma notably being one of them. Meanwhile, sure, Eomma was often irritated by small things—a sudden traffic jam when she picked me from school, my refusing to take a nap, Mom’s frequent teasing—but she was never truly angry. Whenever she had to deal with an upset person, she would just acknowledge their being upset and left the room, both giving them an out and dumping the responsibility to initiate the reconciliation with her on them.
That day, after listening to Sohee’s side and receiving her contact detail in case I wanted to keep in touch with her, I went straight home, burst through the front door (it took some good twenty minutes to walk from the gate of the property to the front door), and thundered at Eomma. I remember Aunt Seunghee was visiting that day, and she was chatting with my mothers in the kitchen. I remember how quickly their welcoming expression morphed into one of shock and worry as I spat out vitriols at Eomma. Both Mom and Aunt Seunghee were aghast at what I’d done. Eomma’s face went hard and cold, but just like always she said nothing and merely left the kitchen.
I remember wanting to go after Eomma because I wasn’t finished. It wasn’t finished until I heard her side of the story. I remember that Mom put herself in my way and tried to pacify me. “Sweetheart,” she said, “you’re angry, I get it. Let’s calm down first, please? Why don’t we sit down? I’ll talk to Eomma, okay? We’ll all talk about it.”
I remember not being in control of what I said next: “What do you know? You must be so fucking happy Eomma chose you over her own family! Over her own fucking culture! Why should I listen to you? You’re not my real mom!”
Aunt Seunghee went pale. Mom went even paler. The moment I realized what I’d said, I immediately wanted to grovel and kiss Mom’s feet to beg for her forgiveness. But I never got the chance because, to my surprise, Eomma came back running—literally—to the kitchen before I could take one step toward Mom. Mind you, growth spur had hit me then, making me tower over my mothers by a full head. But Eomma easily grabbed my shoulder, then the back of my neck, and with a force I’d never imagined she possessed she turned me around like a rag doll and yanked me to bend at the waist, forcing me into a bow in front of Mom.
“Apologize. Now!”
Between Eomma’s firm grip on my neck and the genuine snarl in her voice, I don’t remember which made me dizzier. The next thing I remember was Aunt Seunghee’s pulling me into her car and driving away. As I looked behind at the gate of my house, I gasped out my apologies. “I didn’t mean it. I swear, I didn’t mean to—Mom is—” I don’t remember being able to fully comprehend the situation or the fear. Fear of disappointing Mom. Fear of having Eomma hate me.
“Normally, I’ll just go straight into quartering whoever messed with my sister, but you’re my favorite nephew. So.” Aunt Seunghee shrugged.
“I’m your only nephew,” I couldn’t help but whine.
“Exactly. My sixteen years old, stupid, and whiny nephew.” Aunt Seunghee reached over to pat me on the shoulder, the same shoulder that Eomma had grabbed. “You’re staying in my place for now, alright. And don’t be smart. I’m not as nice as your moms.”
I stayed in Aunt Seunghee’s house for three days, and those were the most miserable three days of my life.
-.-.-
Of course, the episode didn’t last long. I was their baby, after all. Their sixteen years old, stupid, and whiny baby. Eomma didn’t hate me, and Mom was quick to forgive me. She even picked me from Aunt Seunghee’s house and took me to a pub for my first taste of alcohol. “You’ve grown up,” Mom said. I toasted to her, and it was then that I was aware of having the power to hurt my mothers now that I’d grown up. It took me some more time to reconcile with Eomma, but she too came out softened by the ordeal.
What I want to underline here is that it was the only time I ever witnessed Eomma lose her temper, and it all had to do with my offending Mom. The only time Eomma inflicted a punishment on me was when I insulted Mom. In many ways, Mom was Eomma’s one and only exception, and she remained smitten with Mom until her last day. Now this part didn’t come as a surprise to me.
My mothers were more on the demonstrative spectrum when it comes to being affectionate. They would always find a way to touch each other when they were in each other’s presence. The kinesthetic demonstration was both so intimate and common in our household that it familiarized the definition of a healthy relationship to me. And the gestures didn’t have to be big. Sometimes it’s just their sitting on the couch watching an old movie as they waited for me to come home from my soccer practice, with Mom massaging Eomma’s feet or vice versa. Sometimes it’s just Mom’s curling up against Eomma, napping while Eomma did her afternoon reading. Some other times, a hand against the small of the other’s back or the brushing of shoulders while preparing breakfast or dinner. Twice a month, they went out for a dinner date.
Mom was understandably the one with more on-site schedules out of them, but she made sure to never make Eomma alone be responsible for each and every single thing in my childhood. Growing up, she was a nightmarish menace to Aunt Seunghee, and she told me, “God forbid I let you do the same to your Eomma.” She declined offers for tours that could go on for months, and in the occassions she had to be on the road for weeks, she arranged for Eomma and I to tag along for the majority of the tour.
Due to Mom’s line of work, sometimes we had guests from the shining world of entertainment over, some of which I recalled in good rapport. If they were Korean or of Korean descent, my mothers instilled in me that I should never use banmal, the informal register of the language. Martha Wainwright, John Legend, and my godfather Greg Kurstin were a regular. Sungtae Heo and Hodong Kang were hilarious honorary grandpas, and Hayley Kiyoko always brought me the best assortment of chocolates, to Eomma’s displeasure. One time, Krystal Jung mourned her breakup with her Rolex importer boyfriend by moping and taking over my bedroom for two weeks that I had to vacate to Mom’s home studio. The great Sandra Oh, the one guest I always wanted to impress the most, once spent the night after a jolly party, and I found her nursing a headache the morning after in our kitchen.
Sandra raised her head and blinked as she saw me on the doorway. “Mornin,’ little monster.” She then switched to Korean. “Want some o’ this?” She raised the glass she was holding to show it to me, shaking its content a little.
I heard the word monster, and back then I thought it was a good nickname. I thought it made me a sibling of Cookie Monster, but I wanted to show her that I could behave like a grown-up. “No, thank you,” I replied. I climbed to my highchair next to her. My throne, Mom said, but at that age I didn’t know what it meant.
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
I settled in my chair, looked at her, and said, “May I have some juice, please?”
Her head whipped so quickly toward me. “I asked if you wanted juice before!”
“Yes, please.”
It was when my mothers found us. Shaking her head with mirth, Mom noted, “First thing in the morning, and a two-times Oscar winner is arguing with my little monster.”
“Oscar!” I said, again thinking of another Sesame Street character. “Sandra has two Oscars? I want to see!”
“Ooh, you wanna go with me?”
“I want to go!” I clapped. “Where?”
Cooing at me, Sandra then turned to Mom. “D’you mind if I rent your kid for a day or two, Wendy?”
I nodded at Mom. “Mom, can you let Sandra rent me?”
Mom sighed. “Your Eomma will kay-eye-el-el me.”
Rolling her eyes, Eomma simply bumped her shoulder against Mom’s and proceeded with breakfast preparation.
Eomma, on the other hand, discovered that she liked reciting classical poetry and was rather good at that. This was a period of my life where I often fell asleep as she practiced her reading. Most people would’ve thought that Mom, being a singer, was the one to sing me lullabies. Now you know that Korean classical poetry was my bosom buddy.
She also started a podcast and made a segment where people could send a message to their younger self. The podcast grew to the point that she could hold a series of exhibition in Korea and later in the US. In New York, Eomma was approached by Wolfram Kadinsky, then-Director of Korean Studies at Columbia, and was offered a permanent spot in a series of reading, the only reader who wasn’t a poet. Emily Jaein Park often hosted us for dinner, and she found it ludicrous that we as a family had never ventured beyond Bluffer’s Beach even though we had lived in Greater Toronto for so long. I remember dozing off on Eomma’s lap after dinner when Emily told her that she would drag us three to all beaches in Ontario to make up for the lost opportunities.
“Seungwan and I aren’t too good with water activities,” Eomma told Emily.
“Nonsense. Leave it to me, and I’ll put turning Dante into a formidable swimmer in your agenda.”
Eomma chuckled, seemed to be humoring a thought, then asked: “Gay agenda?”
The next morning, Eomma called Mom to pass along Emily’s message. Mom said, “You kidding? We can’t swim. You can’t help me if I drown.”
“I’ll bury you,” I remember Eomma say in that deadpan, dry tone of hers.
And fate decided to help make Eomma and Emily’s gay agenda come true. I took to water activities like a dog and years later became an academician on all things ocean and a PADI-certified Advanced Open Water Diver. The picture where I took Eomma and Mom to snorkel in Oahu, their first experience of the kind, still sat above the fireplace in our house.
So my childhood was spent mostly in the presence of eminences, be it of music or poetry. In between temporary caretakers, Eomma and Mom took turn to feed me, rock me to sleep, and humor me in case my mood went hoopla. There’s one reading I remember, in which Mom was also in attendance, where I was close to throwing a tantrum (in my defense, the event was delayed and started pretty late). Eomma asked the organizer to switch her time slot, took off her heels, and pulled me into a slow dance. I had to stand on my tippy toes, but I knew that kind of dance was the dance only grown-ups did. Some people around us took out their phone to record us. We were giggling throughout, that is, until Mom appeared backstage. “I was worried because it’s supposed to be your turn, but here you are,” she said, pretending to be annoyed for obviously missing the fun. “See if I ever check on you two again.”
“Shon Seungwan, how dare you.” Eomma thrusted me to Mom, kissed her cheek, and went to the stage, barefooted. I sat with Mom in the audience. Eomma started her reading by referencing me. “Apologies for my tardiness. My son backstage wants nothing more than to go home and watch Paddington Bear. Let’s hope I don’t bore you or him further.”
This was what I learned over the years: an extraordinary love comes in ordinary ways. Once, not too long after I finalized my divorce and still reeling from its aftermath, I asked Mom of what made their relationship so enduring. She replied, “Well, love, of course. And trust and tolerance and patience and the will to keep working on it.” When I asked Eomma, she said, “I just focus on your Mom.”
Speaking of their marriage, even its circumstance was far from ideal. In fact, it was driven by a tragedy I don’t think Mom had ever recovered from. I was a sophomore at Cornell—Grandpa and Aunt Seunghee’s alma mater—when the news about Aunt Seunghee came. Eomma called. “We need you to come home,” she said. She booked me a flight, and my roommate drove me to the airport after my afternoon class.
In Toronto, all five Shons received two officers in black suit, who represented the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/WHO Office in Washington. Aunt Seunghee, then-Deputy Director of the Caribbean Subregional Program Coordination, had passed away in a hospital in Barbados. She and her team were sent to investigate an outbreak of a respiratory disease in a village, and it proved to be highly contagious. Her last message to the Washington Office was to ask for a quarantine protocol to be set in the village. We all know how it unfurled: for the next three years, SARS-CoV-3 BQ-11.7 wreaked havoc all over the world. Universities and business establishments shuttered, concert venues and stages filed for bankruptcy, and the luckier part of our society retreated to the safety of our house. But at that time we didn’t know it. We only knew that we were to receive the PAHO/WHO’s condolences and wait for Aunt Seunghee’s sealed, must-not-open casket to arrive.
Mom dealt with it all on an autopilot mode. During that visit, she was robotic. “Yes. I understand. Thank you. Yes. We will. Thank you.” For the rest of the night, she clutched at Eomma. She sobbed until she lost her voice. Until the day we went to Pearson to pick up Aunt Seunghee’s casket, she was afraid of letting Eomma go too far from her, as if Eomma would evaporate if she did. For a few weeks, Eomma helped Mom with almost everything—bathing, dressing, tying her shoelaces, even eating. In all, I watched my mother’s world collapse and my other mother’s world tried to withstand double its weight.
A year into the pandemic, Mom brought home paperwork from the office of the justice of peace. I was sitting with Eomma in the living room, discussing what we should have for dinner. Mom took off her mask, shoved the folder she’s holding to Eomma, and said, “Joohyunnie, sign it.” At Eomma’s bewildered expression, she shook her head. “Please sign it. I want to marry you. Once you sign it, we can go to see the justice of peace. Let’s get married.”
I watched Eomma blink, open her mouth then close it, say nothing.
Mom kneeled in front of Eomma. “Look, between the two of us, I know it’s gonna be me. I’m gonna be dying first. You know my stinky luck. I’ve survived a car accident, a punctured lung, two ankle surgeries, and all the misfortunes you can name. If something happens to me—”
“Don’t say that.”
“—if my time comes, I don’t want anyone else to oversee me.”
“You want me to wh—Shon Seungwan! How dare you!”
“Joohyunnie,” Mom interjected, gentler. “I don’t want anyone else.”
Eomma was still at a loss when Mom turned to me. “C’mon, son. What’re you waiting for? Don’t you wanna see your moms get married?”
I drove them to the justice of peace, served as their witness, and treated them to dinner by using my salary as a library assistant. Going home, they couldn’t stop giggling in the backseat. Very unceremonious of them, I know, but also something so them. Once the pandemic eased off and restrictions were lifted, they went to Bali for their honeymoon. I went back to Cornell for grad school, and life picked up once again.
-.-.-
Having shared all that, this is not to say that my mothers were immune to what was expected from them as an out celebrity couple. While the more sympathetic populace in Korea deemed them inspirational, many bemoaned the fact that Eomma and Mom never made themselves more visible beyond their regular donation to the South Korea League for Marriage Equality. Even I thought they were more invested in the reunification than in marriage equality. The weeks following the reunification, Eomma and Mom were glued to the television, keeping up with what’s happening and regularly contacting their friends in Korea. That’s the longest time I’ve seen my mothers follow current news.
The legalization of same-sex marriage in Korea took ages. Many labored and bled for it. Understandably, a considerable number of activists pointed finger at my mothers for hiding behind the security and comfort of our new passports. The privileged who had never used their privilege to lift up others, or so I’d heard.
There’s some truth to what they accused my mothers of: Mom was one the most private people I’ve ever known, and Eomma hated public attention. An example: it took Red Velvet fans years to figure out who Grandpa Shon really was, even though he wasn’t exactly a low-profile figure, being a former Regional Director of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). My mothers had to redirect their career outside of Korea once their relationship was made known to the public. In my case, even I didn’t find out about the Baes until that fateful day. (With Eomma's permission, I sent Sohee cards every New Year and Chuseok, and that’s it.) In Eomma’s particular case, she lost her family to be with Mom. What more would Korea ask from my mothers?
As I grew older, I came to the realization that every reasoning I had concocted in my head in defense of my mothers paled into insignificance compared to what they meant to each other. Those who were close to my mothers knew exactly who they were to each other. A few years ago, David West-Jeong, himself a grandson of one of my mothers’ former bandmates Sooyoung Park, invited Eomma to Harvard for the reopening of their East Asian Literary Research Center. I kept some lines from David’s introduction of Eomma as an anchor in my dark days: “I’ve known this person almost as long as I know my own parents and grandparents. And I don’t think there’s anyone more befitting to spell it out loud for us of what it means to stay true to your heart not only because of hardships, but also in spite of them.”
I don’t think Eomma and Mom ever wanted to be more than who they were or to have more than what they already had. They went through all the stages traditional couples did. From colleagues to friends to friends with complicated feelings to lovers to partners for life. To having me. To motherhood. They faced challenges. They fought, rare as it is. All came with the package of committing themselves to one another.
I also don’t think they found it necessary that the whole world knew. The only ink Eomma had on her person was the line “the sky, stars, and Seungwan” in Korean. This was the line engraved on her wedding ring, too. Mom, always the one wearing her heart on her sleeve, always the one with the cloyingly sweet words, said that growing up she wanted to be many things—astronaut, mathematician, dentist—and none of it lasted longer than the desire to be a singer. But then she met Eomma, and her life goal changed once and for all.
Eomma, so used to Mom’s corny jokes and grease, once asked, “And what is it that you want to be, Seungwan?”
“Yours.”
(I was no older than ten back then. Naturally, my reaction was, “Eww.”)
Early March last year, just off the tail end of winter, Mom was diagnosed with pneumonia. She recovered from the bout and was allowed to receive outpatient care at home. Yet somehow, I suspected she knew her time was near, and so did Eomma. One evening, I was called to their bedroom and found Eomma hold Mom’s hand and lay her head on Mom’s shoulder.
“I’m going first, Joohyunnie.”
With overwhelming grace, Eomma raised Mom’s hand to her lips and kissed her knuckles one by one. “Shon Seungwan, how dare you. Watch it: I’ll be close behind.”
Mom chuckled and took Eomma’s hand to kiss her palm in return. “I don’t want you to hurry.”
“Oh shush. I don’t want you to wait too long.”
They didn’t speak again, and neither did they speak to me. I left them and called my two children. I told them I loved them and wished I could hug them right then. In the morning, Eomma and I found Mom had passed in her sleep. She was eighty-eight years old. We grieved. Eomma and I wept. I took care of the funeral, brought Mom’s ashes home, and started my Mom-less life.
Post-funeral, Eomma would start her day by greeting Mom’s picture next to her urn and ended the day by whispering, “Good night, Seungwan.” She kept her daily regiment to her best abilities, and my children and I took turn to stay and keep her company. Not only once I caught her thinking out loud to herself “Seungwan would love this” when she saw or heard something I knew Mom would’ve loved.
Eomma celebrated her ninety-first birthday in late March, and we had dinner with my children and my cousins. I went through Mom’s effects and discovered some objects that I’m sure hold memories for her and Eomma. I found the original writing of “the sky, stars, and Seungwan” on a piece of yellowing paper, written in Mom’s longhand in both Korean and English.
“Oh, that’s the design for my tattoo,” Eomma said when I showed it to her.
“When did Mom write this?” I asked.
“The idea’s from me, but your Mom had better longhand, don’t you think? So I asked her to write it down. We went hiking to Mount Biseul, if I remember correctly. My birthday, yes. Your Mom called it our sexcapade.”
She then displayed it on her nightstand, next to a picture of them taken during a vacation in Italy, where Eomma found that she was pregnant with me, hence my Italian-sounding first name—never mind the sheer mortification I had in my age from knowing the story behind the writing.
True to her words, Eomma followed Mom three months later. Of the ninety-one years of her life, only twenty-one were spent without Mom by her side. My daughter announced the news of her departure to our relatives and friends. I waltzed through the whole daze of losing both parents almost absent-mindedly, though I knew my mothers had one hell of a good life.
I wish I could tell each and every story I’ve witnessed and heard about my mothers. There are times when I think to myself that it’s such a waste to not share the extraordinary pieces of their lives. Then again, as you can read from this writing, even I got baffled, humbled, and overwhelmed by all that. Love does that. Their love does that to me.
To some extent, you can even say that I blur and muddle the objectives, sentiments, and longings of this writing. Now that I have shared my mothers’ story with you, I at least can take comfort in knowing that they leapt into life with the courage to do what’s right and, when necessary, to right the wrongs. And these last twenty-five years, I’d say, Korea, my mothers’ birthplace and always the homeland dear to them, has shown too that yes, yes, progress is absolutely possible.
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DANTE JINYOUNG SHON is Mycroft H. Baird, Jr. Professor of Oceanography and Environmental Science at Harvard and a 2077 National Book Award winner. His newest book, a memoir of growing up with two mothers and getting into the underbelly of the Korean seafood industry, will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux this Fall.