What happened to my mom?

I waited for the number 78 bus to Itaewon for a long time, but it didn’t come. When one finally appeared, it sped past without even slowing down. It stopped far down the road, so I ran after it to catch it—but it left before I could reach it.

I walked the long way home. When I arrived, I looked for my mother, but she wasn’t there. My father said she had gone to the temple. Days passed, but she didn’t come back. I searched for her, wandering over hills and through mountains, trying to find the temple she had gone to. But I couldn’t find her. Then, far away, I saw a bus pulling away—and next to it stood my mother in white clothes, waving at me. I ran with all my strength to catch up, but the bus disappeared from sight. I collapsed on the ground, crying out for her. That’s when I woke up—from a dream.

One day, the classroom door suddenly opened. A student rushed in to deliver a message to the teacher. My heart sank.
“This is it. The news I’ve been dreading has finally come.”
I sat in fear, waiting for the teacher to speak—as if I were on death row waiting for a sentence.
When it turned out to be something else, I would breathe a long sigh of relief. That was how I lived throughout my school years.

Even when I was playing outside, I couldn’t fully enjoy it. What if something happened to Mom while I was gone? The moment I got home, I would check on her before even putting my bag down. If I saw her lying still, I’d press my ear to her chest to make sure I could hear her heart beating. Sometimes I’d hold my hand under her nose, just to feel her breath and make sure she was alive.

They said my mother got sick after giving birth to my younger sister, who’s five years younger than me. She had lost too much blood, and it affected her hormones. To this day, I still don’t know the exact name of her illness. All I remember is that she was often in the hospital or lying in bed, always sick.

I used to worry she might die at any time. So whenever she felt slightly better and went outside, I followed her everywhere. When she went to the nearby temple to pray, I would play quietly in the yard, watching her white rubber shoes from afar. When she visited relatives, I waited outside, holding onto the front gate post until she came back out. She would often scold me for following her everywhere. But even then, I could never bring myself to say, “I’m afraid you might die.” I just wanted to be near her. It felt better to wait by her side than to suffer with the fear that something might happen while I was gone.

As I got older, I knew I had to live my own life. So I left her behind and moved to America. At first, I called often and sent letters. But life got busy, and my messages became less frequent.

The image of her in white, waving behind the bus—maybe that was her final goodbye before going to a place I could never reach.

I visited her grave, tucked away in a lonely spot overlooking the distant river. I lay down and pressed my ear to the ground, hoping—just maybe—I could still hear her say goodbye. But all I could hear was the sound of the river flowing by.