Landing in Your Inbox

68 - photo of my mind

art by PRNforhappiness 

On the day of Yoon Seri's 8th birthday, her father scheduled a family portrait session. This was the portrait that would be hanging in the family estate for a year, welcoming all visitors and showing them the present and future of the Yoon family. 

The patriarch, Yoon Jeung Pyeong, sat at an armchair to the left of the frame, wearing a neutral expression that would soon be interpreted by the sons as a judging look that stalked them each time they would go home from school with suffering grades  His wife, Han Jeong-yeon, sat at the right side on a chair with no armrests. Her expression was no more buoyant than her husband, which is nothing surprising of the stony woman. It seemed she was only in the portrait as proof that there was a mother. Behind the father, the sons stood in identical dark blue suits. The eldest, 15-year-old Yoon Se-joon, stood at the middle of the portrait with his chin lifted as though to assert his status as heir presumptive. To his right side was 14-year old Yoon Se-hyeong, the glasses lent him a stern and calculating demeanor that classmates once teased as being nerdy but have since subsided when the boy managed to organize a posse of flatterers (read: thugs) around him. 

And finally at Yoon Se-joon's other side was the only daughter. Yoon Seri was the only person who smiled at the camera, because it was her big day and she was happy to stand behind her mother. The portrait captured a moment in time when the family still coexisted—not necessarily in harmony but at least with a level of tolerance that was no longer evident in the present day. The daughter, who stood at the edge of the frame would eventually disappear from that home.

17 years later, the kind of photographs Yoon Seri displayed in her home were her own successes. The ones where she signed contracts, sealed the deals with persons of importance, won prestigious awards and cut the ribbons. The ones where her victorious smiles shone through and mocked her brothers in online articles and videos. If she was ever in doubt of herself, she would only visit these mementos and be reminded of how far she had come as a businesswoman, as the CEO of Seri's Choice, because that's how she designed her life since she left home. They were proof of how she achieved by her own merits and not because she was born a Yoon. It had even gotten to a point that she had to remove some frames to make space for new triumphs. The most recent entry showed her shaking Ko Myeong-eun's hand.

Now wasn't that a well-lived life? She set out to rise and conquer the market by her 30s and that's where she was headed.

There was one odd photo out of her collection, a frame that showed her mother in a stolen shot. Seri had been telling herself repeatedly to take it out but she hadn't decided where to move it or throw it. For now it stood apart from her hall of accolades, a reminder of love so generously given but never reciprocated.

February 2, 2021
A Celebrant's Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Seaweed soup was served for breakfast in the Yoon family estate even though the celebrant was not home and hadn't been since a couple of months ago when she stormed out of the house following an altercation with her brother. Still, tradition was tradition and the soup was cooked regardless of family squabbles and sibling rivalries. It had been that way since the children were born and there were no plans to change even if bridges were burnt and torn asunder. The seaweed soup will still be served, even if most of it will go to waste. The celebrant's father would not touch it, seeing there was no point to it. The celebrant's mother would always be reminded by the fact that she had not given birth to that child.

The celebrant herself stopped partaking in it, it was one of the traditions she was happy to be rid of. Why consume a postpartum dish when her biological mother abandoned her to a family who mostly loathed her existence? Yet the soup arrived at her doorstep that morning anyway. The writing on the card made her smirk. "Fine." She said with a sigh of resignation, "You win."