Happy Birthday, Mom

Today, May 4, my mother would have turned 76. Below is a repost from 2013, when Mom would have turned 70.

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My mother was born on May 4, 1943. She would have been 70 today, Saturday—this little woman who touched so many lives.

As I wrote my little brother David recently: when Mom was first diagnosed with brain cancer, I remember wishing, like a person in the "bargaining" stage of grief, that she could somehow live to see 70. It was 2009; she celebrated her 66th birthday in May of that year (see here). I didn't think that wishing for a few extra years of life was asking for too much. In the end, though, she didn't even make it to 67.

It's still too painful for me to dwell on counterfactuals—the would-haves and could-haves and might-haves of Mom's situation. David speculated that Mom would have been amused about turning 70. Maybe she would have; we'll never know. I do know that I never gave her a proper hwan-gap party when she turned 60 in 2003. The hwan-gap is a traditional Korean celebration to commemorate having lived one full turn of the Chinese zodiac, which "resets" every sixty years. Most devoted Korean children throw such a party for their parents when they hit sixty. I'll chalk this up as another one of my failures as a son, another regret.

Along with regret, there remains an overpowering wish that came upon me while Mom was suffering from her cancer: I wished, and still find myself wishing, for the power to absorb the cancer into myself and die in Mom's place. That death would have been fine by me; I'd have accepted it gladly. In the meantime, Dear Reader, you see what I mean about the pain that comes of reflecting on counterfactuals.

How do you celebrate the birthday of someone who is no longer with you? I have no idea. Perhaps I'll hit a local bakery and buy a tiny, humble cake with a candle. Perhaps I'll find a secluded—or at least a quiet—spot to sit and think for a while. Perhaps I'll hit a temple, if one is open in the evening. A goodly chunk of my day will be spent at my friend's Mr. Seoul contest, but there will be time afterward for tranquil, sad reflection.

When I remember back to Mom's final nine months, I find myself awash in sense-memories. I remember the warmth of Mom's body as I sat next to her on her favorite couch, watching TV with her. I remember how her lips trembled, more and more, as the months went by and she ate with greater and greater difficulty. I remember looking into Mom's eyes, when she had become largely silent because the cancer had taken away her powers of speech, and I remember trying my damnedest to understand what she may have been thinking. I remember how my mother smelled every time I hugged her good-night, and how heavy she felt whenever she stumbled during our walks in the local park, and I had to help lift her to her feet. I remember how she warbled, weakly, a "Happy Birthday" song along with the rest of my family when I turned 40 in August of 2009, right in the middle of Mom's cancer. I remember the feeling of Mom's hand in mine, the companionable interlacing of our fingers. I remember the last time she ever laughed in my presence.

She deserved so much better than what she got. Fate dealt her a cruel, cruel hand when it gave her glioblastoma multiforme. On this day, which would have been Mom's 70th birthday, that's the thought that dominates my mind. She deserved better: a better life, and a better son.

And now I'm in Korea, the land of Mom's birth, surrounded by people whose faces carry echoes of how Mom looked. I see her everywhere—everywhere—in shattered fractal iterations, all around me. Sometimes, back in the States, I would find myself inside one of the large Korean grocery stores, looking at an old woman who reminded me of Mom in some way, my throat tightening. How much more powerful, then, is that experience here, on the peninsula. But as is true of all ghosts, I know I can't touch any of these dim reflections of Mom. These people, on the street and in the shops and subways, are strangers; they don't know me. I can't start randomly hugging them or bursting into tears in front of them. But the temptation is there, and it's hard to resist.

The only answer to this grief is a Korean answer: endure. Life goes on. We move forward through this world because we must, because time marches ever forward and the human character is stubborn. Mom is a flower whose petals have scattered, but it's good to remember that she was always part of a much greater field of flowers, and that new flowers will constantly appear to replace the old—never quite like Mom, but never totally unlike her, either. In the end, Mom has blessed us with her memory: seeing echoes of her in the people around me is only condign.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you.