अ Novel

Episode 12: I Am So Sorry, Grandma!



There should be a regret. I should not have raised hell. I should not have risen from my seat. I should have gone to the rest room and freshened up to say cheese.

Though a disciplinary committee of some sort had been held by my request, the committee persons were not prepared nor willing to hear complaints from me. They were only sitting tight with their mouths shut. Awkwardly I had to read my position piece by myself.

It was blameworthy of me that I had faced up to the managing editor. I had to be criticized and punished for that. But in some respects Mr. Yun had caused the disturbances. I wished that the committee would take commutational considerations out of the circumstances. That was it.

The swift disciplinary decision handed down by the company was a "recommended" resignation. Booted out of the work place, I had no place to go to. The end of 1981 was drawing near. The street was so dreary, with the fallen leaves blown scattered. and with people, hunching their bodies in piercing cold, stampeding to their homes.

Wife had her share of disappointment, anger, frustration and resentment. But she did not make a scene. She did not get angry at me, either. She got angry at nothing but at everything.

Hardly had she been informed of my dismissal from the company when she hit the road for my survival, to no avail. On a cold winter morning, she visited the company president's mansion but she was rebuffed at the gate. She gave up on the effort after one more appeal with a certain line of political connection, which had been a naive idea of her own.


Amnesia is just the problem. The reason why I have been shrouded with the clouds of amnesia so early is a thorn in the eye. It looks like I have just been in panic just because of that. The crux of the problem is that I'm inclined to forget what I'm supposed to remember. I am afraid that I'm thrown into the labyrinth of forgetfulness. I wonder whether I'm in the second stage rather than the first stage of the senile dementia, that is, the Alzheimer's Disease.

I am lost from time to time using the mass transit system. Just two days ago, I went by my original destination two or three stations past. In an effort to ride the reverse train, I had a hard time stepping up and down the stairs because of the strained or regressive knee pain. In my case, stepping down the stairs has been harsher on me.

More often than not I lose words, that is, I'm lost in the rain forests of words. It takes minutes in rare cases, but it takes hours in most cases to recollect just the word I had been about to use. With no hiatus, day in day out, with no hesitation, with no consideration of my friend's discomfort, I knock on the door of Google. I'm startled to find that any attempt of mine at a better writing piece would be impossible without the competent aid of the Google search.

I'm scared to death that my amnesia might one day be a threat to the safety of our house, and that of the whole apartment of the same line. The problem is that the pot's contents on the electric oven are more often than not overly cooked to the extent that they are charred.

Amnesia turns out to be also a threat to my health. I almost always lose the exact time at which I should take the medicine, and take it at haste at a wrong time. Three small capsules of medicine, which have been prescribed to lower my high blood pressure, are taken at a dawning hour, and another capsule of medicine is taken after morning meal for the treatment of the weak teeth, and two capsules of medicine for the treatment of the expansion of glandular prostate (not sure still about its nomenclature) should be taken one capsule each after morning and supper.

I'm confused about the temporal relationship, forget it very often and I more often than not lose confidence in myself doing that (Did I really take the medicine?). Recently I made it a rule to give every and each action a surety sign and whisper to myself "I am taking it," and after I'm done, say it again, "Yes, I assuredly took it!"

My filial amnesia, that is, the amnesia of my filial duties particularly toward grandma, is the most fatal. I'm angry at myself. I'm extremely pissed off when reminded of my perfidy to grandma. I'm in such a bad mood I can't forgive myself for being so ungrateful a person.

Grandma had been just like mama to me. Grandma had loved me with all that had been capable for her. She had given me all the best food but breast feeding. She had made the best, prepared the best, and saved the best for her grandson.

Grandma had been my secretary, my librarian, and my spokesperson, and for all that her unthankful grandson had been lacking in appreciation, forgetting all that for a long time. Grandma had never dumped or shredded pieces of paper scribbled on by me.

My belongings had been categorized, bound and wrapped in knots and threads and put into cute colorful sacks and deposited deep in a room closet: academic documents, diplomas, classroom credentials, and documents of appreciation. She had always spoken for me when rebukes had been in store for me.

Grandma had doctored me real nice. She had been versed in the nomenclature of wild plants, their roots, leaves and seeds, and their medicinal effect. She had literally hit the hills and forests, searching for the medicinal herbs which would be used for curing the sick grandson.

Grandma had been so versatile in domestic and unanticipated complications that she had once exorcised me. I got so "possessed" every other day on the summer days of 1949 immediately one year before the Korean War broke out.

I got contracted with a bizarre disease every other day. I got nothing other than chills which gave me a big shiver. Then grandma took me to the front garden and let me lie down. Then she called out all evil spirits and ordered them to leave. She threw a knife or something into the air, of course to kill them.

Presto! Grandma had finessed the eviction of the evil spirits from "her darling puppy." After one day of peace the other evil spirits came again. In that sequence, grandma's fierce struggle with those "miscellaneous spirits" had continued for no less than 100-some days.

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Today (November 1, 2010, Seoul) I got my access to a specific online site rejected. The online door keeper restrained me at the gate with a scowling face, showing me "NSAPI plug in" rejection board, which indicates that any attempt to log in the site has been being frustrated.

I'm so vulnerable. I'm so powerless. I don't have any means to explain me, and to defend me. I hate myself for being so ignorant and powerless. I don't have an iota of computer knowledge which has more often than not been inflicting on me all assortments of harassment and violence.

Though I have been ransacking the online trails I've trodden the previous two weeks, I can't find that I have to be censored and disciplined beforehand. I think it is against common sense that the online supporters of a specific politico, that is, Representative Park somebody of the ruling party of all the political parties, have been going berserk, counting the days that have been left for the term of the incumbent government to end, assuming that it is taken for granted that Rep. Park somebody would be elected the next President. Do I think wrong?

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Grandma's adoration of and affection for me is listless. I can't pay back an iota of debts I had been indebted to grandma. Though she had run literally all the mile carrying her sick grandchild on her back, I hadn't carried her even once on my back. When I came to make a late realization, looking for my grandma, she is not here.



I Miss You, Grandma

When Grandma passed away
It was on early winter night in November
The chrysanthemums were in withering glow
Under the setting moon...

I lament you in your weaning years
Kept in a patio just like a pig pen
Shut off from your past
Shut off from your offsprings....

I am sorry Grandma, so sorry
I am so shameful Grandma,
of my being such an unfilial grandson
I regret with my broken heart that
I had not crushed your sad cage...

Grandma, long-trimmed in white chima
With a long face but with fire words
You warmed around and pleased folks
With long delicate hands good at cooking...

Grandma, coming from Euiseong Kim clan
Wedded to the poor Bannam Park clan
Just off a mountain hill peak
You had a hard time making a decent living...

Grandma, widowed in earlier years of her marriage
Took the helm of a famished family
In the ruined country
Keeping house wise and safe...

Grandma, you endeared yourself to me greatly
Running all the mile to the town clinic
Carrying your sick grandson on your back
and waiting in the dark alone for the late-coming grandson
Holding the lamp on the pine hill pass...

Oh, Grandma, I owed you much too big to pay
But I said no sincere words of thanks to you
I did a belated take that
I had been so ungrateful....

Having been an evil doer so unthankful
I am feeling a deep remorse today
and will remain a sinner forever
Oh, Grandma, where can I find you and
kneel down and beg forgiveness from you?