Kim Seung-jong's Literary Miscellany (173) 'A Life in This World of Sacrifice for One's Children'

A mother who married a widower of 41 when she was 17, became a widow at 31, raised her late husband's children from his previous marriage and saw them wed, then spent a long time alone in her hometown house. When mobility became difficult, her son, a poet now 73, returned to her at age 97 to care for her. Nearly two years passed. Then the mother caught a cold, phlegm accumulated in her lungs, and she was hospitalized for treatment. The doctor recommended moving the weakened mother to a nursing facility affiliated with the hospital. Those around them also advised: "Now, do not insist on direct care. Do not go to extremes with life-prolonging measures. This is likely not what the patient (your mother) truly wants either."

The poet wrestled with his greatest life dilemma: "How can I leave my mother alone and tear myself away? Is there no path but to turn away with grim determination? Must I become, like everyone else, a heartless person no different from anyone? How else can I find the true way and true path as a son before being human? God, please answer me."(『The Longing That Hovers Where You Left』, Jinwon Publishing, 2024, pp. 27-29) As we all know, nursing home admission is a 'modern-day Koryangbang' (an ancient Korean practice of abandoning the elderly), and the poet could care for his mother in the countryside house where she had lived before, or in his own apartment in the city with his wife. In other words, nursing home admission is not the only option but merely a matter of choice. The following poem by the poet is drenched in remorse and self-reproach written while thinking of his mother confined in a nursing home, leaving her empty country house. It draws us into deep contemplation in many ways.

Your pitch-black heart burning bright crimson,

You who morning and evening offered faithful devotion—

Times have changed and such sight grows rare now.

What saint ever endured sacrifice equal to yours

And came into this world?

All the more, no matter how humans sacrifice,

How could they ever follow your example?

In this turbid world of evil times,

Your faithful devotion, that single flame,

Is the life of all mothers in this world.

In this life, a single devotion for one's children

With one's whole being sacrifice and suffering, tears concealed,

When the time comes, without warning you close your eyes.

Sometimes in this life when the world grows too burdensome,

Heaven seems so distant you cannot see it, and you close your eyes;

Sometimes your resolve crumbles and your eyes close.

This heart, blackened like charcoal,

You cannot bear to show, so all your life you hide it and live,

Then one day without warning you suddenly fly away like a crane, as if you never came to this world,

And thus you depart—this is the life of all mothers in this world.

Children bear children, and those children

Grow past fifty yet believe their mother does not age,

Remaining frozen in her place.

This world living in such delusion

Is the heaven of foolish children, the blind leading the blind,

Truly a hall of mirrors in foolish delusion.

The tree wishes to be still but the wind will not cease [樹欲靜而風不止]

The child wishes to provide but the parent does not wait [子欲養而親不待]

The tree would be at rest

Yet the wind does not stop;

The child wishes to care

Yet the parent will not wait.

- "The Life of Burnt Charcoal, the Life of Mother" / Lee Byung-jun

We marvel at the circumstances revealing that the poet-speaker has long viewed his mother's life as 'self-immolating devotion,' keeping the burning 'burnt charcoal' image close to his heart. Yet regarding the message "What saint ever endured sacrifice equal to yours / And came into this world?"—a message we have not heard before—we seem inclined to temporarily withhold assent. We become aware of ourselves trying to distance ourselves, calling this an exaggeration, then hesitate, and finally come to acknowledge this conviction when we add the personal circumstances of the poet and his mother as a premise. Moreover, reading the line "In this turbid world of evil times, / Your faithful devotion, that single flame, / Is the life of all mothers in this world," we recognize that our own mother, like the poet's mother, is not merely an abstraction, yet despite this, we are moved as humans and as others by that dedication of love we cannot imitate, enabling us to regard our mother as the most human of beings.

Wounds that the mother "cannot bear to show" her children, hidden "all her life," then departing "one day without warning, suddenly flying away like a crane, as if never coming to this world"—we contemplate her life ever more deeply with this vision of "how all mothers in this world depart." Would it have been better had she been like a candle? Consuming herself entirely as burnt charcoal, warming the ondol floor of a poor home with her burning, exhausted and extinguished silently, her lustrous black hair thinning into humble white hair.

This elegy does not conclude with the denouement we might expect, elaborating on the appreciation of her sacrifice. At last, the central message of this poem emerges.

The poet laments the world where "the child grows past fifty yet believes the mother does not age, / remaining frozen in her place," and satirizes the "foolish children" in their "blindness," their "heaven," their "hall of mirrors in delusion." This contrast, this emphasis, is aimed first and foremost at the poet himself, but it inevitably extends to us, included in this same social condition, and we too cannot avoid it, shamefaced as hair standing on end. Now it would be good to reference the poet's own reflections, expressed directly as commentary to this poem.

Why do humans, as children, fail to understand the meaning of that ancient saying about the 'sorrow of wind and trees,' and fail to awaken early to it? When we depart this life and pour out buckets of tears, it is a futile act worth less than a single fallen leaf—why do humans, more stubborn than bears, choose to live as obstinate blockheads? Reflecting on the years passed with my ninety-eight-year-old mother in a nursing home, I acutely feel that such remorse and pain can never be cleansed or healed. As time passes, the ache in my heart only deepens. In this life, it is karma I can never cast off but must carry with me, so my worry is insurmountable, and nothing but futile lament emerges.

It is unnecessary to say, but this sorrow-tinged questioning and reproachful reflection are something we all share.