We hold to things we love so tight, because of course, we love it and we don't want to let it go. But sometimes holding on it too much makes us too vunlerable that we rely on it as our source of motivation.
What if it is just disappeared unexpectedly? We don't hold anything anymore, but we're still gripping. What are we even holding on? Or we're just pretending that there is something in another end of the line. But that thought it gives us hope to move, would it be so bad to be in denial of your lost even if it makes you feel better?
It was a rainy day, wrong timing that we are just cleaning truck.
To be honest, it was a bright morning earlier, but suddenly the sun was shaded by dark clouds, and anytime a call could ring due to the rain.
Don't tell that to the chief, that I have just said that.
Me and Kisoo is already wiping the truck, when the rain poured hard and decided to ruin our work.
"Seriously!" Kisoo said as he throws his wipe and went inside.
Leaving me alone in the pouring rain. Well, I am under the roof, but the lady that I saw is not.
Without hesitation, I came nearby her with my overalls over my head telling her...
"Ma'am you should stay inside here for a while." as I tried my best to cover her, but she is already cold and wet due to heavy rain.
"Officer, can you help me find my daughter? She just turned 18, 20 now, much more taller to me, with bright eyes and brighter smile." she said.
She is tight holding to a framed picture, that I assume is her daughter, but I cannot see it.
"I will do my best to help you ma'am, but you have to get inside, before you get cold, okay?"
She trusted me and went inside with me. I made her sat on a chair, cover her with blankets, and got a hot choco I just smelled coming from the pantry.
"When was your daughter missing?" I asked.
"I-I don't know, I don't remember... Maybe nights ago? She never went back last night. It's cold and rainy outside today, she might be cold. Oh, my poor Iksoon-a... I need to find her now." she tried to stand up, but I stopped her.
"Ma'am have you already reported this to the police?"
She abrudtedly hold me with her cold hands, her big eyes met my sight, and she hold me tighter.
"Shhh... you don't tell the police about this. They cannot know I am still looking for my Iksoon. They keep telling me my Iksoon is already gone, that she nowhere to be found, that she will never go back home, but I know she will. My Iksoon is a good girl, she wants to be a teacher, she is so smart, she will find her way back home. She will come back, and I will do my best to find her, so she could come home faster, because I miss her so much. She is just busy doing other jobs to help me, what a good girl right..." her stories and speeches doesn't seem to end, neither her roller coaster of emotions, that could be signs of something.
"Ma'am I will try my best to help you, I will go for now to ask my team about your case, and I will get back to you. But you have to stay here till the rain stops, stay warm, okay?" she nodded, as sips with two hands to the warm chocolate I gave her.
I left and went to Chief's office, ask her if she is familiar to her pretty much already existing case.
Since Taewon is small, even the silence here is so loud.
And she knows,
A year before I was stationed in Taewon.
She tells "Her daughter went missing, and then they found her body a year after that, which they said... close to the day of her birthday."
"She was raped and murdered, to a fraudelent request."
"She was a famous cheap tutor that people could hire. No one knows, and no one could know what she is doing, since she never told or permitted by the authority about her services. Her mom pretty much know about her sidelines to survive studying for college, but doesn't specifically know things about it. As the mom is clueless, there are lesser lead to where to find her."
"Till a body was discover a year before today, buried under a house, on one of the houses that burned down in the Taewon Fire last year. Suspect was caught, and imprisoned. The body was enough evidence to proved it. They confessed out of too much guilt. They said it never passed the day they felt bad about "accidentally" killing the girl."
"The mom started to be denial even on her daughter's funeral, because it was just her daughter's birthday. She placed colorful things in the funeral, thinking people are there come for her daughter's party."
"She cried when she burried her, and yet she still goes back to the police station and report that she is missing and she never went back home that night, over and over. Then suddenly she disappeared."
"Now she is back to Taewon to ask again where is her daughter. The mother snapped when her daughter never returned, and still indenial of her being gone. Her denying is so bad, now she is in that status. Everyone tried their best to help her, but nothing work. She just switch places asking the same questions, and she never get sick of it. She said would offer her life till she gets her daughter back, even if it means her last breathe to this world."
After I heard her story, I don't know what to say to her. She does not accept that her daughter is gone. I have nothing in my power to even help her at all in her needs.
"Dojin-a," Chief calls me back. "Please do not try so hard, but do your best." then I smiled as I respond to her.
I got what she mean, but when I went back to her. The chair is already empty, a paper was left, the mug was well placed to hold the folded paper, and the blankets were well folded on the floor.
I turns out it is not just a paper, but a note written...
"Officer, thank you for your help. I think my daughter will comeback home soon. So I will just go back to our house and make her favorite food. We haven't celebrated her birthday days ago, so maybe she will come back home and have some fun to celebrate her day. Thank you for the warm choco, and your warmer heart that give me spark of hope after all these days that she's been missing. Ms. Lee Mi-soon."
After reading it, I was scared that I might have given her false hope, and with that I am now contemplating if I ever did even helped her or made things worse.
When I opened it, it is the funeral picture of her beautiful daughter with bright eyes and brighter smile.
I lately noticed that the rain already stopped, and that the sun shine brightly again, and there was a rainbow.
I will never get the mother's emotions towards her own situation, even if I have experienced multiple losses already in a little matter of time, because of this job.
If stages of grief are really stages, then why it seems like she is stuck on being in denial?
Was being denial so bad?
Or that is the only thing that makes her feel better with her lost?
We deal our grievances differently, this one is a big example. And I still have a lot to learn.
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Learning Curve to Grieving (The First Respnders' Bong Do-jin Narrative)
Fanfiction"We are all familiar to the concept of, Stages of Grief. Stages of grief is where we go through when we face sorrowful scenarios in our lives, usually expressed on lost of love ones by death. But was it really stages? Don't we go back again to being...
