Family Ties

The best part about living in Korea for two years was getting to know my family there. Having many relatives in one physical location gave me a sense of security and rootedness that I never knew I was missing, growing up with only my nuclear family and a handful of relatives in the same state. There's a unparalleled sense of comfort in knowing that there are so many hands waiting to catch you if you should fall. And even more than in America, where even close friends often maintain an uncrossable line of distance, Korean families are passionately involved, hands-on, and yes, sometimes unbearably meddlesome.

I don't know quite how it turned out this way, but my family is tossed across the globe -- father in Korea, mother and aunt/uncle in Seattle, brother in San Fran, me in Crimson City. And sometimes I'm glad -- oh, SO glad -- not to be in the same place, not to have to deal with the messiness of relationships that can't be abandoned with the same ease that you might quit a friendship or a lover. The main reason I didn't pick the Seattle job this fall was because I visited and saw what a terrible burden it would be to be close to my aunt/uncle/mother when I didn't have any other support, in a city where I knew no one else. A weekly phone call is hard enough sometimes -- to be in the same city with two people who rely so much on you for their happiness is not a burden I was prepared to take on. It grieves me to admit that. But I don't want to give up my freedom yet.

But last week gave me a glimpse of what I'm missing by living so far from family. In the four days I spent in SF with bigbro, J1, my dad, and my grandmother, I got annoyed by my grandmother, had a yelling match with my brother, and got bored by my dad. I also shared a huge laugh as my grandmother, after refusing to drink, downed half her soju in one gulp. I measured and sawed with my brother and dad as we put down IKEA flooring to make my brother's workspace in the house a little more user-friendly. I listened to my dad explain why he'd turned the picture of my biological grandmother (his mother) around -- "So your grandmother [in truth, my step-grandmother] doesn't feel bad." I watched my grandmother saw through cow bones she boiled a total of four times to collect the nutrient-rich tendons for J1 and the rest of us. I winked back a tear when I saw my father took his first grandchild into his arms, wearing an unfathomable expression of tenderness on his face.

My grandmother, along with bringing hundreds of dollars in baby clothes and mountains of homemade Korean food, gave a sizeable amount of cash to bigbro to celebrate the birth of The Nephew. She didn't give that kind of cash to her other grandchildren in Korea. When I asked my dad why, he explained, "She feels she didn't do enough for you growing up. You were so far away. And then she felt left out of your lives, like she didn't belong. But now, with your bigbro inviting her to see the baby, she feels like she belongs. And she's happy."

I've lived a continent away from my closest relatives since I graduated from high school. I've made some fantastic, lifelong friends. I've gotten to know some cool cities on the East Coast and I've learned a million things that I couldn't have learned had I stayed in California, or if my family hadn't moved from Korea that fateful day in 1976. I don't regret any of the experiences I've had out here -- they made me who I am. But there is something about being with my family -- maybe in particularly my dad and my grandmother, whom I see so rarely -- that makes me, when I leave them, feel like I am leaving a part of myself behind. That makes me, when I am with them, want to hold on to the moment forever, knowing that such precious love-filled moments are finite in number. That makes me, when I am back in my room in Crimson City, feel simultaneously fiercely grateful and fiercely sad.