Kevin Vollmers had a hard time letting go of his pain and grief, as they were the only connections he had to his late mother. Here, he learns to say goodbye.
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Pain, grief, and loss have been good companions for me. For years, I have held these dear friends close even though I knew intellectually they crippled me. They have been my go-tos, whom I call upon when I need a good cry. They have been my constants, especially when I feel lonely. They have been occupants of a large portion of my being; that space where they exist has been my sanctuary and also the home of my deceased mother’s ghost. And during my recent trip to South Korea as I sat near my mother’s grave, I embraced a notion with which I have struggled – it is time to say farewell to my old friends and to my mother.
My mother’s ghost has haunted me for over a decade. In 2002, I returned to South Korea for the first time since being adopted as a seven year old to seek out familial connections. The search was “successful.” I discovered a lot about what happened to my mother, who struggled to raise me as a single parent through the formative years of my childhood. A few months after relinquishing her parental rights, she visited the orphanage in Seoul where she had placed me for adoption to inquire about seeing me. The person at the orphanage informed her I had already been adopted. It was a lie. I was at a foster home nearby; two of my cousins, who speak English well, say that my mother did not say much or engage others that often afterwards. She quietly returned to the port city of Busan shortly thereafter, and died poor and alone from heart complications in November of 1985. I had been adopted only a year and a half prior to that in March of 1984. Her siblings buried her in an unmarked grave near Yangsuri, not in the family plot. She was severely shunned by her parents, my grandparents, for being a single mother after I was born. In death, my mother once again found herself marginalized.
The success of that search for my mother was beneficial in many ways. I regained a connection to Korea through my reestablished relationships with my aunts, uncles, and cousins. I also discovered a new motivation to accomplish more. After all, my mother’s legacy existed within me. Nevertheless, the story of what happened with my mother was devastating. I had longed to see her, talk with her for so long, only to lose her again to death; I internalized the loss and mourned. I had hoped that the circumstances of her life would have turned out for the better, only to learn she passed away with nothing; I internalized guilt, apologizing to my mother’s ghost.
Since meeting my mother’s ghost, my old friends pain, grief, and loss have physically manifested themselves in the most unhealthy ways. Every now and then, I have burst into uncontrollable sobbing fits, throwing off the people around me. I have gone into wild mood swings, unable to control the chaotic feelings within. At inopportune times, I have become melancholy, bringing down the moods of others. These manifestations have unfortunately happened in the presence of my two young children as well.
If you have not figured out by now, embracing my old friends pain, grief, and loss has been my way of holding onto my mother’s ghost. They have made me feel close to my mother, even if what I was seeing was merely a specter. However, my (selfish) actions have not come without consequences. They have not allowed me to realize that the memories that I have of my mother are more than enough, stories that I can tell my children. They have not allowed me to see that my mother, who left this world nearly three decades ago, would not want me to cling. Most importantly, they have at times hindered my relationship with my son and daughter, who need for me to be present and loving, who need for me to create fond memories with them like my mother had done.
All of this became clear to me during my recent trip to Korea. There, instead of facing her grave and talking with her as I have done in the past, I spent most of my time marveling at the beautiful landscape of the hills surrounding Yangsuri. When I addressed her grave, I talked about the time she, with boisterous laughter, hosed me off after I had fallen into the hole in the ground we called a toilet. And I did not linger. I walked down to my cousin’s car about forty five minutes later, contently smiling and wondering how much weight I had gained from the fabulous food I had consumed.
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Photo courtesy of the author