I Think She Finally Met The Big Guy This Morning

Our grandmammy died this morning.  It was 4:45 a.m. local time in Vancouver.  We didn't call her grandmammy.  Not even  close.  I just said that because that's what popped up in my head.

Halmuni had waited on her husband hand and foot (literally), her entire adult life.  She bore six children, five of whom survived their childhoods.  When she and gramps would visit Philadelphia every year or so, she'd sleep on the floor while halabuhji would take the bed (there was enough room for both of them on the bed).  She'd never lift her chopsticks before he did.  She'd lay out his clothes.  She'd polish his shoes.  She'd scrub his back in the tub.  She was, in a word, devout.  When halabuhji passed, I had hoped that she would live a little.  One of our cousins would inform us years later that she watched the VHS video of her husband's funeral on repeat so many times that the tape wore thin and snapped.  Foolish me to think that her newfound freedom would make up for a lifetime of loyalty.

My mother's voice announced the news of her death as I sat at my desk and retrieved her message.  I was in a meeting when she had called.

There was a story my grandmother told me when I was very little.  She was a devout Christian, wife of a poor Presbyterian minister, and her faith was solid as a rock.  She wanted to teach me the power of prayer and faith.  She had been separated from my grandfather and captured at the beginning of the Korean war.  She spent her days reading her Bible and praying.  Eventually, she was presented with her last meal.  Her belly swollen with my father, she prayed that she and her baby would somehow make it through this ordeal unharmed.  She ate the meal before her.  Then the kind soldier guarding the pregnant woman took pity and let my halmuni go when nobody was looking.  It was the kindness of a stranger - some would say, a miracle - that saved my halmuni and her unborn child who would, thirty years later, father one bratty little Korean babe named Julia.

I don't have a relationship with my father.  This is a very deliberate choice.  But today, as I impatiently raised my voice to remind my mother to stay focused and put aside her deep resentment against my father and his family out of respect for halmuni, I wondered how difficult it must be for my father to just be.  He is the eldest son in his family and has not provided anything of benefit to anyone in his immediate familial circle.  His own children have no respect for him.  His wife has no respect for him.  His siblings have no respect for him.  In turn, he has no respect for his children, his wife, or siblings.  His father had even disowned him at one point.  How frail, how miserable, and how damaged one's ego and spirit must be that he conducts himself the way he does.  My greatest fear is that I am the fruit that does not fall far from the proverbial tree.

I didn't spend a lot of time with halmuni.  When she did visit every now and again, she'd always have toast with jam and peanut butter as part of her breakfast.  She stood a mere 4'10", if that.  She couldn't carry much of a tune, but that didn't stop her from loving her Korean hymns.  Prayer was her passport to happiness.  She'd remind me to always be thankful to God, do well in school, and pay heed to my parents.  And then, poof, she'd be off again, heading home to Toronto or visiting her other grandchildren.  But not without a group prayer first.  Prayer was serious in our household.

There was a brief time when halmuni and halabuhji had their own unit in the same apartment complex as us.  They had come to America to live with their eldest son, my father.  Halmuni worked at a sewing factory.  My grandfather would watch me.  At the end of her shift, when it was dark outside, he and I would pick her up.  Occasionally, he'd suggest that I stay put in the apartment while he fetched her.  It wasn't far, but I'd usually want to go with him.  He'd oblige with a sigh and a smile.  Some days, I'd walk to the supermarket with halmuni.  Often, she'd buy me bubble gum.  Grape Bubble Yum, to be exact.  Great big rectangular prisms of purple sugary goodness.

Halmuni must be drunk on joy right now.  How happy she must feel to see her husband again. How beside herself she must be to finally meet our father, the one who art in heaven and gives us our daily bread.  She is, quite literally, in heaven.