Subtraction

I am facing the direction of the kitchen sink,  starting to make dinner.  It may have been for myself,  it might have been for my family.  The walk home quiet solitude after writing my last exam of my ninth grade year.  I don't remember which exam it was anymore,  perhaps math.  I’m tempted to verify the actual date in my highschool agenda that is tucked away in a dust-covered box as a momento.  There’s quite a collection of such things.  Reminders of myself from a different time,  perhaps carrying fragments of identity.  I’m still wearing my school uniform: a white golf shirt embroidered with my school's initials over my left breast, a green, white and black wool tartan kilt.  The thick, forest green socks pulled up to the crease of my knees, as was expected, shirt tucked in neatly at the waist.  The length of the kilt hovering just above the upper edge of the patella.  I always found the socks itchy.  It was quiet at home.  I was alone.  The afternoon sun was glowing through the kitchen window, saturating the room with a warm, deep yellow hue.  It was mid June, just before my fifteenth birthday.

A sharp knock came at the front door.  It startled me.  My family lived in a humble three bedroom apartment and,  while there was no security,  there was a locked front entrance requiring a key,  so it was unusual to have someone just knock.  Peering through the eyehole, there was a middle-aged Korean couple standing outside.  I assumed they were friends of my parents, but I did not recognize them.  An apprehensive stiffness began creeping into my limbs.  Hesitant and unsure,  I opened the door just enough to peek out.  Before I could say anything in greeting,  the woman demanded, "Where is your mother?"  Her unfriendly tone took me aback, and my guard flew into high alert. "I don't know.  She's probably at the store," I responded tersely, with a hint of defiance.  I cannot recall if they responded in words,  but without invitation they pushed the door open against my resistance and barged into our apartment,  not bothering to take off their shoes.  To not remove your shoes as you enter someone’s home is highly offensive in Korean custom.  They sat themselves on the tired, beige sofa in our living room, ignoring me.  The man picked up a newspaper from the living room table and leaned back as he began to read.  The woman stared out the unwashed glass doors to our front floor balcony.

I was stunned.  I stood staring at them,  speechless,  not understanding why these strangers had come to our home,  much less now were sitting in our living room.  I did not understand why,  if looking for my mother,  they had not simply left and gone to the store where she was likely to be working.  They looked like an average middle-aged Korean couple,  not unlike many of my parent's peers.  The woman had permed hair and was dressed demurely.  The man was probably wearing a golf shirt and dress pants.  He did not say a word to me. 

I shrugged them off and returned to making dinner.  Normally,  I would have offered them something to drink in politeness,  but their rude entry had erased any desire to be courteous.  I banged around in the kitchen trying to indicate that they were unwelcome, hoping they would leave.  They murmured to each other, their tone urgent, displeased, but hushed.  The woman might have asked me a second time where my mother was,  to which I might have answered,  "I don't know,"  and after a while they left without addressing me again.  I locked the door after it shut behind them.  I don't remember anything after the click of the lock.

An uncertain amount of time passed before my father sat my brother and I down at the kitchen table to tell us that our mother had gone away for a little while.  He also told us we would be moving.  We did not question him; it was not our culture to question our parents.  Not even my brother, the more vocally impudent one, said anything.  There was no show of emotion by any of us.  We never brought the matter up again.  My brother was thirteen at the time.  That June was the only one that no one remembered to celebrate my birthday.

My mother came home once following the year of her departure to try to reconcile with the family, to try to explain why she left.  Thereafter, she never came back.  We kept in touch loosely,  but I was no longer permitted to acknowledge her as my mother in her presence.

Twenty years later, I received a phone call that she had died.  At her funeral, her community was shocked to learn that she had children.  They did not know what to make of us.  We remained in the background, strangers to them,  shadows from the past of the woman they thought they knew.

My mother's second departure was as abrupt as her first.  There was no goodbye,  simply a subtraction.

Post-script

The wise adult in me has come to understand that my mother fled because she was overwhelmed beyond her capacity. When humans are overwhelmed, our primal instincts often take over leading us to fight, flee, faint or collapse into a dissociated state. It has taken many years for me to be able to see, accept and forgive my mother as a vulnerable and fallible human being. The adult understands that she didn’t mean to hurt me.

The child however, relives the memory as a continually repeating loop:  A skipping needle on a vinyl record, pricking painfully away at a cavernous wound, drawing fresh blood each time.  A child reaching for her mother. The mother turning her back and walking away.

It’s been over thirty years and it still hurts. But, in exploring these memories gently, patiently, and with skillful guidance, I am learning how to attend to this wounded child and give her the care she needs to mend her heart. Slowly, she is learning to trust again.