Mother-in-law's silk blankets

The end of July 1984 was as hot as the weather these days. Should I have married in such a heat wave?

Six months before the wedding, our couple made a wedding vow at the New York City Hall. We couldn't even think of having a plausible wedding like everyone else. However, at the insistence of both parents, we reluctantly were dragged to Los Angeles where my in-laws live to have a wedding ceremony.

The wedding hall was a small church that sister-in-law attend. The officiating ceremony was set under a promise with the pastor to study the Bible after marriage and be baptized. Two sister-in-law who majored in fashion design and fine art handled dress and makeup. And brother-in-law who majored in photography helped photos and flowers. The father-in-law, who worked on the northernmost Arctic coast of Alaska and made western food for life, made a cake and party foods. I just did what my family-in-law members told me and didn't go on a honeymoon.

My parents were excited that their 30-year-old daughter was getting married. They brought two large suitcases full of wedding gifts for in-law's family from Seoul. I returned to New York as soon as the wedding was over, without seeing what was in the bag. After 28 years of marriage, I learned one by one what was in the two large bags through a telephone conversation with my mother-in-law.

The mother-in-law's story, which takes about an hour every weekend, always reminds her of the terrible scenes of her life. It also starts with very cold winter memories. Her little daughter died and she was buried in the snow-covered ground. As she looked back, the white hands and feet of the dead child stretched out of the dirt, because the frozen land she dug alone was not deep enough.

"Mother, how could you have lived after burying your child like that?" She said, "What shall I do when my other child is about to starve to death?" My mother-in-law, who has vivid memories of winter rather than summer, loves the cotton blanket my mother gave me as a gift.

"Your mother's padded silk blanket is so warm that it still covers it. I've never seen such fine cotton in my life. Spring and autumn ramie blankets were too precious to cover. I am old enough to die at any moment, so I use them these days. Before I go to bed, I look and see again and again at the flowers patterns on the blanket of the ramie. I love summer threefold blanket because they are cool, too."

I didn’t give her a designer bag or mink coats, but whenever I heard my mother-in-law saying she liked the blanket my parent gave when I married, I said, "I married well."

My father in Seoul said, “If you were married in Seoul, it cost you a lot of money. These days, if we give the wedding gifts that way, you were mistreated. Your parents-in-law are not greedy. Take good care of your parents-in-law.”

I have only two sons. When I will get daughter-in-law, I will forget even the memory that once upon a time there were wedding gifts for in-law family. If the two of they help each other and live well, I will think it is wedding gifts and filial duty.