TW: This story may contain a sensitive topic. Please proceed with caution.
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A widow. A woman who has lost her spouse by death and has not remarried.
A widower. A man who has lost his spouse by death and has not remarried.
An orphan. A child who has lost both parents, or a parent, by death.
But what do you call a parent who has lost a son by death through violence? Who has lost another by circumstance?
There is no special word for it, right? That is because the pain of loss is one so incomparable, no word can ever describe it.
I lost not only a son. I lost two sons. I lost my husband. I lost my family.
This is my story.
My husband, a man of few words, is a man of integrity, honor and strength of character. He lives for the betterment of his country before his own.
Don't get me wrong. He is not an irresponsible husband or father. Definitely not. He dotes on me and his sons. His ways and means of showing his love may be different from other husbands and fathers, still, there was never a doubt that he loves us the way he knows how. The way a soldier knows how: reserved but is there, often unspoken. This unspoken love will be the third dagger that will make me tread precariously between being a wife and a mother.
Our eldest son had the biggest heart. He loved his younger brother more than anyone in the world. But he takes after his father in ambition: to serve the country faithfully and well. It is that ambition that will bring me my first heartache as a mother.
My youngest? Ahh, Jeong Hyeok, my sweet boy. He takes after my own heart. Soft and gentle and warm. A boy whose love for the piano is surpassed only by his love for his older brother, his personal hero. That love will be the second dagger that will pierce my heart so deep, I will have trouble breathing later.
My family was perfect in all its imperfections. My heartbeat. My life. My home.
Until that day.
I lost my firstborn while he was performing his duty faithfully and well. A death so gruesome I wouldn't wish it even on our worst enemies.
I am not blind to that fact given that he is a soldier and my husband is one, too.
In my heart of hearts, that maternal compass that whispers so loudly if one's child is happy or in danger, I know his death was not an accident. It was cold-blooded murder. I kept my silence.
I kept my silence so as not to expose my remaining family to an even greater danger which I know is lurking in the shadows surrounding us.
I kept my silence even as my already reserved husband became even more reserved. Keeping his thoughts and emotions to himself. Seemingly forgetting that I am supposed to share in his pain and him in mine as what we vowed to do.
I kept my silence even as my sweet Jeong Hyeok turned his back on his dream to become a pianist and chose to be one like his father and brother-a soldier.
I held my tongue even as my second son became so detached I, his mother, can no longer reach him.
Yes, he still calls me mother. Yes, he visits every now and then, but my boy who left for Switzerland full of dreams, looking forward to the future, came home a man who acts like a good soldier: following instructions to the letter.
Even agreeing to an arranged, loveless marriage.
Jeong Hyeok might still be alive in body, but he was no longer my son.
