In Seattle, it rained.
Again.
Against the backdrop of calm but steady drizzle rattling my roof, I stared at the caller ID and hesitated, unsure whether I was quite ready to launch myself back into the past.
I picked it up.
“Hey, how are you? Long time no talk!… Good! What am I doing right now? Um, yeah, so right now, I am reading my old journal from high school and literally, it is so cringing. Here, I will read it to you. This is what I wrote: ‘I have been many things in my life…My life is a parabola, full of ups and downs. I am a graph of polarization, rapidly crisscrossing the axis, freely navigating the spectrums of polar opposites. I have been a leader, I have been a criminal, I have been respected, I have been shamed, I have been myself, and I have been far distant. I consist of many identities-and no values…….’ Isn’t that so ridiculous? I also read it on that one Tuesday when I decided to go back to South Korea, and my very first reaction was, what the heck was I saying? I was just so embarrassed, I slammed the notebook closed. But at the same time, I realized that I was still feeling the same way, you get what I am saying? All these years later, nothing was any better. S, I knew I had to do something. I was like, well, too bad. Now is the time to end it all. Whatever it took, it took. And that is why I climbed up onto the back hill on that Tuesday.”
My obsession with money. My obsession with the concept of hard work and rewards. The one saying that I could not stop repeating… “Even though I tried, things didn’t work out.” Images of my hardworking parents crisscrossed before my eyes, juxtaposed with our poverty, our tears, and our frustrations about socioeconomic inequality. They tried their very best to make it in this society, but only rejection mails and bills piled up in their inboxes. People say great desire is a strong motivator for action, and I felt it every day. All I wanted was that someday their efforts would pay off. Toiling away and being looked down upon and shunned at such an old age…I could only close my eyes and imagine what it was like. I wanted them to finally enjoy retirement in a home that they can proudly call their own. My parents mistakenly believed that I was ashamed of our family’s poverty…What they did not know is that I was far from being ashamed, and they still don’t know that. My obsession came only from my internal desire and a sense of filial piety to provide them with a better life… All I wanted to do was give my parents a brand new apartment in their hometown Seoul in South Korea. That is one and only I wanted, and look where that hill got me today.
“Who am I? Literally, I tell you, I tried to answer this question so many times during my turbulent childhood. The only answer I ever came up with was, I don’t know, how am I supposed to know? To me, I am just me. All I know is, I am deeply hurt by wanting too many things in life. But what you have to realize is– you know me– I am not wanting like super grand things. I just want a piece of property-even a tiny, crumbling building-alongside the Han River in Seoul that my parents can retire to. And most importantly, you know, I just want to be able to smile during the day and go to sleep at night without any thoughts in my mind, knowing that I’ve tried my best and everything is alright. When I was growing up, I often felt like my life was slowly but steadily going downhill. There were many times in my childhood when I laid in the darkness of my room and thought that these cold nights would never go away and the good times would never come. So what I resorted to was, instead of waiting for the sunshine to come to me, I forced myself in its way.”
Before I went away to South Korea, I felt like I was sitting at the top of a very fragile tower on the lonely island that I call home, my feet dangling, my eyes fearfully staring down into the spiraling abyss below. I was always looking over the horizon with my fraudulent and criminal past behind me. To me, it was a sanctuary full of secrets that only I can understand…but I knew that I could not sit there forever. A building without a strong foundation is always bound to collapse upon a gush of powerful wind…and that was the case with my fraudulent life. I mean, it could collapse under my feet anytime. It was scary.
“So that evening in November, after I read the old journal, I climbed up that small hill behind my apartment and laid down at the summit because I had a ton in my mind. I knew that it was about to rain because I could see the dark clouds moving in further. But I did not care. I literally stared at them with bored eyes and dared them to downpour on my expressionless face, but I suddenly frowned because I saw the clouds forming a mouth and moving its lips. I thought I was going crazy, and maybe I really was. The rainclouds were whispering to me, ‘Go back home to South Korea. You will meet me there, and you will find yourself. You will figure yourself out, and you will get far,’ It was crazy, I mean, a cloud telling me to go back home to South Korea and you will meet me there? And you will find yourself? It was only Tuesday, but that week was getting the best of me. I mean, just think about it. A cloud teaching me how to discover my personal identity? The psychological toll and stress of that week were so great that I was seeing things that I should not see. It was too much to handle. But at the same time, the message spoke to me. I knew that there was nothing as bad as staying. I mean, look at me. My lonely life, my fraudulent past, my continuing dissatisfaction with the way that things are now, my desire to have more in life…..I hated my life, and I knew it better than anyone.”
So I resigned from my job, packed up my suitcase, and went back to South Korea. Bright and early one crisp November morning, I headed to a job interview in a towering office building downtown. At the crowded subway station, I gaped at my reflection on the glass screening door. Staring back was a 27-year-old me, wearing a formal business suit and holding a respectable briefcase on a professional journey. As I was standing there I was thinking, huh, I look like I belong. I have made it this far. From the depths of poverty to law school to now here…like a middle school teacher wanted me to, I had come a long distance, and that day, there was just a tiny little bit more to go.
“…And then, here I was, two weeks later, in downtown Seoul. As the subway train rolled on to the platform, I don’t know why, but my face just went up in a huge smile. And I was, you know, all enthusiastic and like, ‘I can do this! I have made it this far. There is no reason that I should not be able to go on even further…I will get even further ahead in life,’ So ambitiously, as usual, I straightened up my necktie, took a deep breath, and walked onto the subway train. But just then, a middle aged woman interrupted me and crashed into me from behind, and without apologizing, she hit me furiously with her elbow to signal me to move along. I was so annoyed, so I was like, ‘Geez! I was going to move along, thank you very much,’ I was just so irritated by everyone in my life who just seemed to want to hurt me, and here in this new land, there was one more. As the image of all my stressors rolled around in a panorama, under my breath I said, barely audible, ‘How come there are only people like her in my life? Aoo…Everyone that I run into is interested only in hurting and bullying me,’ I did not really want her to hear, but at the same time, I was hoping that she would realize that from the outside, you cannot really tell what a person is going through, so it is important to show kindness and compassion at all times. But I guess she did hear me, because right away she was like, ‘Wow, you think you are the only one? The same goes for me too! What choice do we have, just deal with it!’ At that point, I was just so out of it. I was done. So I said, ‘Yes, Ajumma (Middle-aged woman), I don’t care. Now be quiet and mind your own business.’ She was really mad and she yelled at me and said, ‘AJUMMA???? How dare you call me an ajumma. How old are you? You don’t look much younger to me,’”
She was right-I was really not much younger. After that day, we continued seeing each other every morning at the subway station. Things went straight from a mere daily encounter to dialogue-We talked and shared things about our lives and our families. At the beginning, it was only the morning talks on the subway train, but later on, that became pleasant afternoons alongside the Han River to laughter beneath the lamppost every night. We developed a bond, an unbreakable connection, to each other. We had not initially met on good terms, but we understood that without each other, our lives were not the same. We knew that we couldn’t live without one another.
“But as you know, six months later, this woman became my wife. Neither of us had much money, but it was alright. About fifteen minutes’ walk from the subway station, there was a small basement apartment beneath an ancient five-story building. It had only one bedroom, and it was showing its age, but this was the only place within our budget that could be a place of our own. No matter how old it was, and how damaged it looked, it was our first apartment together, the very first step on our ambitious Seoul property ladder. Every day, we didn’t stop smiling as we entered our modest apartment.”
And we never did. It was our first ambitious step on the Seoul property ladder…after years of hard work and some luck, we hoped to work our way up to a riverside apartment. It is so weird how fate plays out. About two months after we moved in together, our neighborhood was chosen by a city government taskforce to undergo high-density urban renewal, a risky yet potentially rewarding project that could benefit all if done well.
“I had built a pretty good reputation in the neighborhood by serving as the president of the local residents’ council, so when the city officials came, they elected me to lead the redevelopment cooperative. That was the first time that people actually entrusted me to do the right thing… It meant a lot to me. The fate of their financial futures were at stake…I mean, if everything went right, there was a prime opportunity to own a brand-new condominium in downtown Seoul. But at the same time, all of us knew that those urban renewal, redevelopment initiatives in the city often fall apart. And they wanted me-a naive, stressed 27-year-old lawyer from the United States-to guide them through this perilous journey. Do you see now you know why I wanted to try my best? I wanted to succeed, not for me, but for everyone else in the neighborhood who placed their trust, their economic futures, in me. No one had ever trusted me before.”
I worked day and night, dividing my day into seconds and minutes…I ran all over the city to meet with construction developers and city leaders and to communicate with residents. Internally, parts of me were already dying from the stress and the pressure, but the excited smiles of my neighbors kept me going for just a little more. I persevered on, desiring to be useful, revering in a sense of purpose.
“But I think you out of all the people would know this the best– leadership is not easy, especially when there is a ton of money-and we are talking millions-involved. I mean, quite literally, there was only one argument, one door slam, one flick of the lighter, one fire…It took only that long for my apartment-the symbol of our family’s hard work-to go up in flames with my wife and infant child inside. I screamed as I covered my mouth and coughed. Ambulance sirens wailed in the distance, and residents gathered outside of their homes to watch the commotion. I was taken to the hospital with severe burns all over my body. As I was being rushed to the ER, I could feel myself slipping out of reality into the empty abyss of nothingness. But even in the deepest of deep coma, my mind wandered all over the darkness, searching for my family, needing to make sure they were okay. It was only after I woke up three months later that I found out the entire neighborhood had burned down that night, and that my wife and infant child had passed. I had missed their funeral and their cremation. Their ashes were now laid in a ceramic jar in a memorial park next to my late grandfather.”
My late grandfather…My dear grandfather…who knew that your eldest grandson’s family would follow you so quick? I closed my eyes and imagined the three white jars facing the open window, the sun soaking in and the wind blowing…A representation of a life that could have gone further, a life that could have gone differently…
Had it not been for my greed.
“Okay, here is the thing: I don’t think I can go on further. I don’t remember anything else, and this is just too much for me to talk about. I have come to my absolute braking point. I am so sorry. I don’t think I am ready yet… Thanks though… Thank you so much for understanding. Yep, bye. See ya.”
I hung up.
I walked right outside. By now the rain had stopped, and I saw the quiet summer evening sunlight spreading itself throughout our neighborhood. Once again, I climbed up the hill behind my residence and laid down at the top as I had done many times throughout my stressful adolescence-and as I had done that particular Tuesday afternoon over two years ago that prompted me to move back to South Korea, the ultimate decision that changed my life forever. They say you can never really understand people’s actions until you actually become the decisionmaker… and I guess that is…true. Because only I would ever get to understand my choices that have led me to where I am today.
I seem to have woken up from a feverish nightmare, but the burns and scars and wounds throughout my body were concrete evidence that what I had gone through in the past two years was real. I mean, this is what I wanted. I wanted to find my identity, and I guess, at a great and painful cost, I…found it. But I lost so many people and so many things along the way that I was not even sure if finding my identity was worth it. I would spend the rest of my life in pain, always struggling, trying to wiggle myself out to freedom from this nightmarish trauma that was imposed on me. The image of my wife and infant child and the burning neighborhood would forever haunt me, and I would spend the rest of my life in guilt and regret, wondering if my selfish and greedy behavior had got me this low, had got me and my family down this path.
Here I am once again, on the green knoll that changed my life forever, squirming and cringing with the weight of guilt penetrating deep inside my body, not knowing what destiny held in store for me. Images of my late family flashed before my eyes once more, and I saw the fire engulfing our little basement apartment that was supposed to be our gateway to the Seoul Dream and the rope up the property ladder.
I glanced up at the sun setting behind the hill. I could see the entire suburbia stretching out before my eyes-neighborhood people getting home from work, getting ready for dinner with their families, residents laughing with their neighbors in friendly evening conversations. I heard children playing outside on the street, and far beyond the charming houses, I could even see the verdant trees and the shimmering lake on the other side of the neighborhood. The sun was setting on my life once again… The sunset symbolizes the end of a day, the transition from a hardworking afternoon to a happy evening. The neighborhood is getting ready to wrap up its day and get itself ready for another tomorrow, but here I am, unable to move on, stuck in the darkness of the past. I knew I had to rise. I knew I had to get up. I knew I had to be strong. In a few hours, everyone else will be flying away to a distant land of tomorrow, but if I don’t act, I will still be here, glued in the repression of today.
What kind of life do I want to build? I asked myself.
And at that exact moment, I knew what I had to do. God had given me the land and the soil here at the summit of the hill, and now it is my job to plant the flowers, trees, and bushes. My purpose here on Earth-It is to create a lush garden where people can lay down and watch the rainclouds speak to them the messages that they need to hear. So here I am, planting a magnificent garden where dreams come true and people can find their purpose and identity. It is 7 o’clock and the sun is radiating at its brightest, and so is my life-In the memory of my wife and my child, I am shining like the lone star in the clear winter night sky, and at that moment, I experience a feeling that I had so much desired to have during my childhood:
Happiness.
It was all because of the Strange Promise of the Tuesday Rainclouds.