The inside of a mom's skirt

I was lying by the river, listening to the sound of the water. The breeze slipping through my thin clothes felt like my mother’s gentle hand on my back. I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up, the heavy darkness had already come.

When I was a child, my mother was always sick and lying in bed. She used to send me to our country house . She promised she would come soon, but she never did. After getting off the bus, I would walk a winding road for miles until I saw the country house. As I walked, the river by the cliff looked deep and dangerous. The water below seemed ready to swallow me whole.

My aunt would lift me up with a hug as soon as I arrived and take me to the stream. She would wash me with cool water. Then, sitting on the wooden floor of the house, I would eat rice with water, pickled cucumbers, seasoned chili greens, and salted clams. It tasted so good, I could almost forget about my mother.

I played with the local kids who welcomed me from Seoul. But when the sun went down and the kids went home, I stood by the hill near the graves and looked down the valley, hoping my mother might appear in the crowd. I looked everywhere, but she never came.

In my dreams, my mother said she couldn’t come because her legs and head hurt. I cried for days, saying I wanted to go to her. Sometimes I imagined she fell off the cliff on her way to find me and died. That thought made me cry even more. After crying for days like that, I would finally get to go back to her.

When I ran into my mother’s arms, I would hide my tears in her skirt so she wouldn’t see. I was the happiest child in the world when she was beside me. On those days, I didn’t cry. I just played and laughed all day.

Now, I no longer have my mother. She has gone to a place I cannot reach. But I am now a mother of two children, and I try to live the way my mother lived—with her gentle spirit.

Like the picture my child once drew of me, I try to be a mother who can always run quickly when my child calls. A mother who never makes her child sad.