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I learnt it the hard way, that there were things that I can’t stop from happening to my loved ones: When I first saw the tears stream down from my father’s eyes as he embraced the cold body of my mother lying lifelessly on the bed, while my brothers and I stood closely behind, trying to comprehend what had happened.

We didn’t know for sure, what that meant, when the line on the meter went flat and the huge digital numbers on the corner of the screen drop drastically down to a ‘zero’ within seconds. But one thing we knew for sure was that it was not something pleasant. Taking both mine and our little brother’s hand into his, Youngmin stepped closer to my father and peeked over his trembling shoulders at the pale face of my mother. All traces of life that once flowed through her ever so cheerful face had disappeared. Unknowingly, tears brim my eyes and fell within seconds. I knew, then, what that meant. My father finally let go of my mother’s hands and instead turned to embrace us three, and his whole body shook with each sob. As he broke the news to us, my mind ran back to the time when my mother was first admitted into the hospital, the three of us kids crawled onto her bed and pecked her on the cheek, asking her if she hurt anywhere. Gingerly, she shook her head and claimed that with us around she wouldn’t feel any pain. But we all knew that wasn’t true. For a seven year old, I couldn’t quite understand what was going on but that day, Youngmin and I promised our mother that we wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

Standing in front of her coffin scared me. I studied the picture of my mother sitting in front of her casket as tears began to fill my eyes again. Watching as four grim old man pushed her coffin into a tiny hole to be cremated, tears instantly stung my eyes again. And as though on the cue of Youngmin’s loud wails, I burst into tears as well, screaming for my mother to come back to us. I tried so hard to wiggle out of my father’s firm grip that stopped us three from going anywhere nearer to the coffin as it is being pushed, but to no avail. I watched as the cruel fire swallowed the coffin with my mother in it, and I felt my body weaken by the second. Soon I was too weak to even try anymore that I just stared blankly at the fire through the gap, as my whole face became misted with tears.

Almost twenty years down the road, I was met with this similar life changing experience. As MinKyeong’s lips began to quiver, I quickly wrapped my arms around her as I asked the doctor repeatedly if he knew what he was saying. As horrible as it seemed, he gave us an amused look as though mocking us, and showed no sign of sympathy a doctor should have as he shook his head at us. Frustrated by his attitude, I stood up and uncontrollably argued with him. “YAH, are you even fit to be a doctor? We just received the life changing news and here you are being amused by our situation?” I ranted in annoyance as I reasoned that his attitude towards his patients were intolerable, totally inconsiderate towards his opinion of me at that moment. Truth be told, I wasn’t even sure whether I really was mad at the doctor’s attitude, or I just needed to let my frustrations out on someone, especially after receiving the news. I tilted my head back coolly to prevent the tears from falling as I grabbed my kids and MinKyeong and stomped out of the office before the doctor could even continue. I marched the three of them towards the reception and requested for a change of doctor, not forgetting to emphasize on his lack of empathy. The nurse apologized profusely and hurriedly rushed to rearrange our doctor’s appointment. MinKyeong my arm as we waited for the nurse to attend to our request, as though telling me that she knew exactly what was going on in my mind, and that she knew I never really knew what I was mad at. Breathing in heavily, I attempted to calm myself down. Having received the new appointment date with another doctor, I tugged on MinKyeong’s arm and led them back to her ward again. Creeping back onto her bed, she immediately lay on her side, facing away from us.

“Kwang uh, don’t let the kids see me like this,” She begged as she insisted on me bringing the kids home first. Giving in, I kissed her wet cheeks and pushed Junhyun out of the ward with MinEun cradled in my arms before they had the chance to see their mother crying like that.

“Why isn’t eomma coming home with us?” JunHyun asked as I tucked him into bed. Hearing that for the first time from my son made my heart clench. I knew that in future my kids were going to ask me more ‘whys’ that I may never ever find the answer to, but for now, I managed a comforting smile and assured him that she would come home the next day.

I dropped MiEun off at Youngmin’s house, after I sent JunHyun to preschool, so that JaeEun could look after MiEun for me while I accompanied MinKyeong to consult the doctor.

Settling ourselves on the chair in the room, MinKyeong’s eyes wandered around as she took in everything in that tiny area. “So this is where I’ll be visiting often from now on…” She commented nonchalantly. I shook my head and insisted that that won’t be the case. But she ignored me anyways. As stubborn as always.

“So,” the doctor started before he even sat down, “let’s run a few physical tests shall we?” Starting off, he seated MinKyeong on a black chair and told her extend her hands out and touched her ear then her knees. I chuckled at the thought of it as MinKyeong joked about how silly she would look. Unlike the other doctor, this doctor, Doctor Kwon, wore a pleasant smile on his face and encouraged her along the way. Exactly the doctor my wife needs to help her get through this. MinKyeong started out on the test as she brought her hands out in front of her, touch her knees and then touch her ear. She repeated this a few more times, her hands occasionally missing the spots she was supposed to touch, until the doctor told her that she could stop. Initially, I reckoned that that was a funny scene and that she was probably exhausted that’s why her hands kept missing the spot slightly, however Doctor Kwon thought likewise.

He finally put her through the last test, a whole body scan and we waited for the results anxiously. Relaxing as sat down, MinKyeong twitched in her seat as she waited for the doctor to explain her condition. Pointing to a few parts of her bones and muscles on the lighted screen, he explained a whole lot of medical terms to us that we did not get at all. Confused, I finally asked, “So, what exactly is wrong?” I questioned warily, trying to prepare myself for what we are about to hear. Placing his pen down, he placed a comforting hand on MinKyeong’s shoulder and sighed before continuing.

“Spinocerebellar Ataxia.” He said. The two words that changed our lives ENTIRELY.

“Your condition doesn’t seem that serious yet, but we’ll continue to observe. We can never be so sure. I’ll see you for an appointment tomorrow and we shall see how far you are.” He sighed.

Once again, my heart ripped upon hearing the same news. TWICE. Except this time, I seemed to accept it. Was it because I had a whole night to register it? Was it that the doctor this time was more considerate towards us? Or was it the fact that I knew with Minkyeong and the two kids leaning on me now, I couldn’t afford to waste time denying the truth? I really didn’t know. All I knew was since we stepped out of the doctor’s office that day, things were never the same again. 

Hey so two updates on two consecutive days ! WOOHOOO !!!!! ^^ yeah truth is we may be kinda busy for the whole week so we thought we did a little update before we start preparing for our personal stuffs. We will be back real quick you probably wont even know we are gone. haaha  

Anyways, So yeah, this was a more emotional chapter, and we hope we did it well. 

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