A person who misses

I saw a tall person walking with a hunched back, wearing black leather clothes and leg warmers. I almost said, “Oh, that’s our senior. Stop the car!” but then I remembered.

We used to call him Dr. Jung. He didn’t have a PhD, but he traveled around a lot and met many people, so he knew a lot. He said it was because he read weekly magazines all the time. He liked it when people called him Dr. Jung.

“Hey, come hang out.”

“We just hung out yesterday!”

“Playing during the week and playing on the weekend are totally different.”

That’s when I realized—even people who party every day want to have more fun on weekends.

He told us the story of going to finalize his divorce with his ex-wife at least a dozen times.
“I was waiting for my turn at the courthouse, and the couple in front of me started arguing. Can you believe it? They came to get divorced and were still fighting!”
When talking about other people’s divorces, his voice got loud and excited.
“When it was finally our turn, we said our final vows to end things nicely. But then she just turned around, jumped into a taxi, and sped away. I can still see that taxi driving off in my mind.”
When it came to his own divorce, his voice got quiet.

He was one of the witnesses at our wedding at city hall. The retired army colonel who performed the short ceremony thought none of us understood English, so he rushed through the vows even more quickly than usual. We didn’t even have time to take pictures. Dr. Jung actually demanded we do it again.

“Hey, they say if a divorced person officiates your wedding, the couple will end up divorcing too. Is that okay?”
He said this with a worried but excited look on his face as he officiated my younger sister’s wedding. Sadly, her marriage didn’t go smoothly.

During those hard and lonely times, with nowhere to go, we often visited Dr. Jung on weekends, holidays, and special occasions. When someone said, “Let’s stop drinking now—for your health,” he would snap back,

“You don’t even know how to have fun! I’ll live longer than you. Go home, you punk.”

He said he’d live a long life… But he passed away young from pancreatic cancer.

On holidays like today, I still feel like he’ll call me, saying:
“Hey, do you have any kimchi?”

Now I say things like:
“Dr. Jung is probably drinking with Mr. Lee in heaven by now, right?”

“Of course. If they were still here, we’d be having a drink together.”

Drinking doesn’t feel the same anymore.