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Death is a humbling and earth-shattering experience.
In a world where death seems to linger around each corner. Euijoo couldn’t have imagined that its icy embrace would ever touch him, let alone his loved ones, but here he stood.
Standing in front of his mother’s casket, viewing the peacefulness painted across her delicate features. Almost as if she were dreaming and suspended in that same state he’d seen her in more times he could count.
There was something missing, Euijoo thought. Was it normal to feel this empty? This lack of emotion for something that felt this painful and yet… Euijoo felt nothingness.
A big, fat void of nothingness.
He’d turn to see family members he hadn’t seen since he was a child all gathered, eyes full of emotion and tears rolling down their cheeks. Euijoo, simply, couldn’t bring himself to shed a singular tear.
It wasn’t like Euijoo wasn’t devastated, he was.
This just didn’t feel real, it felt like a sick and cruel joke that he wanted to shake himself from. Maybe he could give his mother a hug. But he knew, deep in the pit of his core, that this was very much real. No matter what he’d have to come to terms with knowing. He had lost a part of him that couldn’t be changed.
Eventually, time would pass and Euijoo would grow…
One year, two years, three.. Nine years passed and he still carried around that same feeling of pain.
But Euijoo couldn’t hide this emotion forever.. His pain was becoming far too much for him to keep it all inside.
“Are you okay, Juju?” Nicholas asked one, cold afternoon. Euijoo had finally decided to leave his small apartment, get some fresh air, and meet his closest friend for coffee.
Euijoo didn’t know how to express his emotions properly for another person to understand. Nicholas had his mother and father, albeit in another country, but they were alive and well.
“I’m fine.” He answered, lips turning up in a small smile.
“You know, talking about it can make it feel better.” Nicholas offers, playing with the straw in his pink lemonade.
Euijoo had heard every reassuring word from friends and family to talk about his emotions in attempts of letting it go, letting her go.
He couldn’t express this emotion to anyone else without feeling like sympathy was a requirement, he didn’t want to hear that. That was the last thing he wanted from Nicholas right now.
It’s hard for Euijoo. It’s something he can’t imagine anyone his age would have had to experience such grief. But here he was, experiencing it and living it.
“It’s okay.. Thank you though.” Was all Euijoo could say before his eyes felt like they were stinging.
Euijoo knew that someday this wouldn’t be this painful. He wouldn’t feel so alone in his grief, carrying it around like it was a virus. Like a fungus growing around his heart and choking him from the inside out. He knew that one day would get better…
But right now? He was still learning that grief was a process. No matter how long the journey was. He knew that somewhere in the universe, his mother was there watching and guiding him where he needed to be.