💌 421. Even the Keepsakes, Harboring the Spirit of My Father, Turned Into a Handful of Ashes.

Our little house, every corner adorned with our cherished memories, built by our sweat, tears, and love! The only precious nest where my mother and I shared a warm affection, as there was no one else whom we could turn to except each other! Our home, permeated with our sweat and hearts, vanished into a mere handful of ashes overnight.

After crying for a while, I suddenly shouted, "Mother, what about Father's bag?" My mother replied, weeping sorrowfully. "It is gone. Everything was gone." Her words brought a wave of overwhelming sadness. The house had been keeping the most precious treasure of my lonely mother and me. During the Korean War on June 25th, Grandfather carried me and a large bag filled with a substantial amount of money on the Ji-gae (Korean A-frame/carrier) and evacuated.

The valuable bills that filled the large bag turned into useless scraps during the Currency Reform because my mother, who had been too preoccupied with the search of my missing father, could not exchange them. That substantial amount of money had been buried in the roofing of my second eldest maternal uncle's house and in the pile of manure at my eldest maternal uncle’s house. The remaining money had been kept in my father’s bag.

The bag which had been preserved carefully and dearly as the last trace of my father, bearing the imprints of my grandfather, father, mother, and me! Inside it, there were very special items, treasured as my father's keepsakes, more precious than money, far more precious than pure gold.
My mother had been safeguarding it over the years in honor of the spirits of our ancestors.

However, when the house had been set ablaze by my second eldest maternal uncle, the bag embracing our most invaluable, irreplaceable treasure had gone up in flames along with the house. It had been enfolding the brushstrokes and books written by my father who had been well-known for his calligraphy. My father who I had been longing for so dearly day and night! And the only keepsakes through which I could feel his presence!

When waves of longing for my father come rushing in; I would embrace the keepsakes that bore his traces, pulling them close to my chest, and I would try to catch the faint scent lingering on those keepsakes, soothing my pang of nostalgia with tears and practicing Semchigo as if I were embracing my father. Also, in the bag, there was a large notebook that I received as a prize for winning the first place in a handwriting competition when I was a second grader in the elementary school.

In that notebook were my photos and diaries, diligently written from a young age. Numerous invaluable treasures of my mother and me, which could not be measured by any worldly value, vanished overnight. Our only precious belongings, which could be considered the sole property of ours, a mother and daughter who had little, turned into a handful of ashes in spite of ourselves because of my uncle’s greed for only a trifling sum of money.

As for my belongings, I could offer up, with Semchigo as if they were not existent. But when it came to the keepsakes of my father who I had been yearning for dearly even in my dreams, it was very hard for me to practice Semchigo as if they still existed.
"Oh my father!” My father’s traces which I would gaze upon and tenderly stroke when I missed him so dearly to the point where my body trembled! The soft scent of my missing father when I buried my face in those mementos!

My father’s sole keepsakes with which I would soothe my pang of nostalgia vanished all of a sudden. "Ah, when would my second eldest maternal uncle stop causing pain to my mother and me?" This heart-wrenching pain became a dagger stabbing both my mother's heart and mine once again. How deplorable and lamentable!

Upon hearing the news which was a bolt out of the blue, tears flowed incessantly and seemingly to forget how to stop.
"Oh, Father! Where would be the culmination of my suffering? If I die, where would my mother go? Please become a guide for us who had nowhere to find solace.

Please heal me so that I may not become a tomb to my mother's heart and thus manifest Your glory. And please forgive my uncle who is blinded by the love for money." The house had been filled not only with the memories of my mother and me. It had been the place that little Jesus and little Mother Mary used to visit often in the person of the homeless or the beggar to shared true affection with me since I was a little girl.

My precious home, filled with the precious and heartwarming memories of gathering those with no place to rest and providing them a place to stay, was now gone. Therefore, given the situation where I had made a significant decision to move back to the house in the face of my death, it was never easy to practice Semchigo as if the house had never been there from the beginning. Now that our precious home vanished, where would we(*our family), with no place to go, live now?

‘Though my days are numbered, however, I will not succumb like this. I will rise again and move forward until my life ends.’ Once again, I forgave and loved my uncle who brought us continuous sufferings with Semchigo as if we had received love from him. Holding back the pain of my bleeding heart and tears, I offered up all those heart-wrenching pains to the best of my ability.