TO THE SMILE

Chapter 3 - Third grade of elementary school

Beloved Seon

Part of a boy's story: third grade of elementary school

It was when I was in the 3rd grade of elementary school. At that time, my family had to move to the only house in the middle of the mountain, far away from the village. What I remember is that in order to get to that house, I had to climb about 500 meters from the last house in the village where people lived together, along a mountain road where no one lived, to get to my house. At first, the slope was gentle until about 400 meters, but the remaining 100 meters were steep, and in addition to that, when heading home, the left side looked dangerous like a cliff.

When I reached the house after the slope, my first impression of the house was that there was a house standing on a fairly large flat lot, and to the right of the house, small triangular pine trees stretched out endlessly from my young eye level. And the day after it snowed in Winter, the pines seemed to spread far into the distance in the shape of many little white pyramids.

Back in 1979, there were no streetlights on the mountain road, so whenever I stopped by the village at the bottom of the mountain, I always had to get home before sunset or go home with my parents late at night.

But one day, I played happily at my close friend's house, which was about an hour away from my house, and I ate dinner with him and stayed late there. when I left for my home. it was already dark at night. I suddenly felt afraid because I had to go home alone. My happy moments came to an end, and darkness lay before me. At that time, few houses had phones and I didn't have phones either. So there was no way to contact my family to pick me up, and I thought of walking alone on a dark mountain road, crying in all sorts of frightening imaginations, and arrived at the entrance to the bottom of the mountain, running as madly as I could.

Suddenly unexpected things happened in front of my eyes. Not only the mountain road, but the whole world was bright. Even though there was no street light at all, it had snowed a lot from the day before, so it seemed that the whole world had been painted white, and a huge full moon was shining brightly like the white and silver color sun in the sky.

It was the first time the night was so bright. So, I was able to walk up to my house with almost no fear, and when I saw a snowman made by someone on the way, it felt like a welcome milestone to go home safely. And when I got home, I ran into the house shouting "Mom".

I was surprised then. It was the first time I realized that the power of snow and a full moon could make the world completely white. Still thinking about how fortunate and unique and bright the night scenery was.

Seon, that close friend was a kid in the same class, but his one eye was not normal, so at first, I kept teasing him for having one eye. One day, the boy got so angry that he asked me to fight, and I ended up getting beaten up by him. After that, I apologized to him. He also accepted my apology, so we became close, and then we went to his house and played together. In my memory, he lived alone with his grandmother without his parents, and the kind grandmother said that we should be friends, and she always gave us delicious food. So I have a lot of really happy memories.

At that time, the friend's personality was bright and his grandmother was kind, so I didn't think of it. A child who was blind in one eye and a grandmother lived alone. When I look back as an adult, his grandmother ought to have felt sorry for that friend, and she must pass away now, so how would that friend live alone? Why didn't I feel sorry for them.