“Oppa, please take care of the children, they are still young ..” Ji Hyo said breathlessly, she felt weak but she needed to tell her husband that, she knew her husband had loved her with all his life. She was trying to be strong for him, she wanted to live on but yet she could tell her body was wasting away. She was afraid she couldn’t make it and she needed to ask her husband to hang on for their children. “Oppa, promise me, you will take good care of them and help me look at their various stages of growing up. Oppa, promise me”

He nodded weakly, he didn’t want to do that, he wanted to be where his wife was. But he saw it in his wife’s eye, he couldn’t …. Yet. He saw his wife in pain, as much as it would kill him instantly, he didn’t want his wife to endure any further. “I promise you, Ji Hyo. I will take care of the children well, don’t worry ..” his hand wiping away any tears on her face, she should always be smiling. “I  promise you with all my heart. You could ..“, tears were flowing down his cheeks, “rest now. I love you, Ji Hyo”

“I love you, Jong Kook. I will take a rest, I will wait for you, don’t worry,” she promised, her voice getting weaker. She glanced over to her sleeping sons, in her heart, she told them to take care of her beloved husband. She couldn’t be there for him physically from now on, they would need to help her. She looked back at her husband, she needed to see him one more time, she gave him a smile as the last breathe left her.

Ji Hyo hand slided down, Jong Kook felt his whole world shook and he lost conscious.

He attended to his wife’s funeral, he spent most of the time alternating at staring at his wife or tending to his sons. He hadn’t shed a single tear during the funeral. He was like robot, making sure everything was prefect. Even when his wife was cremated, he didn’t cry. He even consoled the people who did. People who knew him was concerned, people who didn’t thought he was cold. From the moment his wife died, she seemed to have also taken away his tears.

He had tried his best to take care of his sons, making sure they are mentally and physically fit. He knew he couldn’t fill the void left by his wife but he tried anyway. His sons had been good kids and grew into young adults. One thing his sons missed is his laughter, he would smile and laugh, but the smile and laughter never reach his eyes, his eyes were only filled with yearning. Sometimes, his sons would flip through the family album and saw their father smiling happily when their mother was around. But they knew, his smile was died the moment their mother did.

When the sons were older, they had requested some changes to their living spaces, their father had agreed but the only space no one could touch was their parents’ room, he wanted to left it as it was. Their son knew their father still slept on his side of the bed, and often laid a stalk of their mother’s favourite flower on her side. Every year on her mother birthday, he would buy a bottle of her mother favourite perfume, he would spray it on the pillow everynight. Maybe that how he could finally rest his eyes at night.

On their mother death anniversary, their father couldn’t left the room lest the house. When they were young, he would send them away, when they were older, he just left them to their own device. They knew their father missed their mother everyday, he was liked been stuck somewhere and yet his life goes on everyday. He did what a normal person would do but there is something that is gone.

When the youngest approached 21, both sons were thinking whether their father would leave them to join their mother. Although their father never mentioned it, they knew he was staying alive for them, but when they are adults and don’t need him anymore, would he give up. They didn’t know should they be happy or sad, but they wanted their father companion a bit longer, at least till they are married.

He didn’t leave them when they turned 21, he didn’t leave them when the older one get married, he didn’t leave them when the younger one was engaged. They hoped he could live a little bit longer. When he didn’t leave them when the younger one was married, they thought he would stay strong and live with them. But they were wrong, he was getting weaker each day after the younger son marriage, slowly deteriorating. He suffered alone, trying not to alert his sons, but whenever there is family gathering, they saw their father withering, their father was getting thinner and weaker each time they saw him. They tried to persuade him to shift in with them. He said no, he was more comfortable staying alone in their old houses. The sons knew he would not last long.

They told their wives about the love between their parents, the wives’ eyes were as red as theirs in the end. The wives thought this kind of love stories only happened in dramas and seeing it happened in real life is heart breaking. Their father-in-law always treated them well and ever a gentlemen. They all agreed to take turns to visit and stay with the old man each weekend, but it didn’t help, their father letting his life go.

After a year or so, they visited their father in hospital. In his last moments, the sons and their families said him smiled, a real smile which they didn’t thought they will have a chance to see it on his face. He had look contented and .. happy, as if the person he had been waiting for finally turned up for him. He wished his family a blissful life and the brothers would be supporting each other. In his last breath, he called out their mother’s name .. and left the world forever.