February 20, 2021
I could talk about how upsetting it is not to have been able to fly out to Seoul and be with family to hug them and grieve with them at this time. I could talk about the relief in the knowledge that she’s no longer in pain as she had been for so long.
I could talk about how faithfully she served God. And how many people’s hearts she touched with her generosity and wisdom. But I don’t doubt there’s people far better qualified than I am to attest to that.
Today I’m simply thinking about her, and celebrating the woman that I’ve been blessed to have known as my grandmother:
My grandma loved the salty ocean breeze.
And I am certain I inherited my own love for the ocean from her. She wore a charming Busan twang all her life, and she was completely in her element back in the port city where she came from. I’m grateful I’m old enough to remember the time when she had an apartment in Busan overlooking the beach. Close to the pier, there would be stalls serving seafood just freshly caught. I enjoy a good seafood platter myself, but here, there were sea creatures I had never before heard of or tasted. To this date I don’t know what some of those were.
My grandma was a fashionable lady.
She wore sparkly things with absolute elegance, and rocked bold prints like the Queen of the Universe. When I had a brief leopard print phase in my late teen years, I swear we would have been matchy-matchy everyday.
She had a little sing-song in her voice –
when she said my name, or called me by one of the many nicknames she’d given me.
And the affection in her voice always shone through, even when she was weak and frail on the afternoons following her dialysis.
My grandma made the tastiest iced coffee –
with Nescafé instant coffee and (lots of) honey.
And when she cooked for us, you knew an extravagant feast was on its way. She would make japchae and jeon and tuigim and jjigae. And those banchans that would have you going for your second or third bowl of rice before you knew it. My favourites: seasoned gosari and those marinated kaenyips.
She’d watch K-dramas –
and often fall asleep with the TV on.
She’d insist that the actress playing the pretty, kind, in every way fictionally perfect heroine looked like me.
With a conspiratorial wink and a playful spark in her eyes,
she would tell me to meet and date many men, so that I would know about all the different types of them before I settled with one.
When I was little,
going shopping with her was both an adventure and a bit of a dreadful affair.
She never tired of walking around the maze that were the shijangs of Seoul, finding deals and bargaining expertly all day. Without fail, we would come home with bags full of pillow covers, decorative artificial flowers, and so on. I would be utterly, completely, thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day.
Even long after I was a grown adult,
whenever we came to Seoul, she would wait until the last day of the visit and give me an envelope for a little pocket money when no one else was around.
A true family matriarch,
she was the love of my grandpa’s life, mum to four incredible humans and their spouses, and grandma to us four little ones.
She laughed boisterously. She prayed for her children and their children daily. She lived and loved fiercely. And she’ll be missed so dearly.
Rest in peace, grandma.
Love,
S.
PARK Gyung Sook, 1946 – 2021 ❤️
