Miles & Memories

Ch. 3 - The Blossom

Saturday morning we woke before the sun had a chance to greet us. My mother and I cut and arrange large amounts of fruits and place them on silver trays. We load the car with the trays, a large picture of Aunt Rose when she was young and smiling, and a small tablecloth with blossoms and greenery embroidered on it.

My father's deep brown eyes face the road and his hands grip the steering wheel making his knuckles look white and tight. As the trees fade and buildings come and go out the dusty car windows, he explains to me how different the service would be in Korea and how so many changes were made for people who came to live in America.

I listened like I did in class, as if a floating bubble were between me and the information. As if each sentence floated around waiting for me to grab on to it. Each word seemed so distant and unimportant to me. I don't need to know this. I am an American. I was born in America. I will be like the women on television with high hair and long legs with tiny pointed shoes. I will wear makeup and jewelry and someday I will make tacos, and have parties, and kiss boys.

The funeral home is far from our small brown house hidden deep under the cover of the trees. The sign is in Korean and the building itself looks small and old with flaking paint and ornate statues covering the grounds as if to scream 'foreign'. My father bows as we cross the threshold and I wonder where his American gusto has gone. He has always argued with Aunt Rose about adapting, about being proud to be American. The thoughts of all these talks make me wonder if her death has made him sorry or if his talks were just a sort of rebellion.

After the shrine is set up with the embroidered cloth below Aunt Rose's picture, we burn the incense and wait. While a wood like scent fills the room my father stands at the door in his black suit and dark socks bowing to each person as they enter. I watch him carefully, realizing for the first time that he is more than the father I know. He greets people with a stiff rigid posture and the words that flow are all about the homeland and an Aunt Rose I didn't  know. Somehow he is connected to them all, by a past I cannot be a part of. My father seems segmented and foreign to me today. The black suit almost seems to have come with its own identity, and I search for my father, the one I know somewhere below.

My mother's stocking feet silently cross the floor collecting trays from women I have never met. She speaks to them in whispers with deep bows and tears, more often than not, slide down her pale cheeks. Her jet black hair pinned with a small white flower makes it easy to find her in the crowd of blacks and brown and I find myself using it as an anchor to find myself as much as to find her.

I sit through the service on a folding chair with a burgundy velvet cushion. The incense mixed with the smell of flowers making the air thick and heavy. My eyes struggle to stay open and the sounds of my father's voice mixes with the sounds of people grieving like waves in the ocean.

It is here, in this crowded room of people, that I realize for the first time that I am different. Not because I am unfamiliar with the service or the words and their significance, but there is a connection, a thread that I am both a part of and separate from.  I am an island, somewhere in the middle, adrift. Hoping to be accepted on the side I choose, the American side with colorful clothes and food eaten in front of televisions.

We drive in a long line to the cemetery. A row of cars driven by people who either knew aunt Rose or came from her home land. It's like that for them. The old timers, those holding on to their culture and roots so far away. They could have been enemies over there. But here, they are tied. Linked with an understanding that I'll never be a part of. Here preserving culture is bigger than squabbles or liking a person.

My father speaks again, standing at side of the grave slowly in both Korean and English. Speaking of aunt Rose's lust for life and how her soul is now at rest. Flowers and stones are passed out to place in the hole with the casket. I receive a yellow Orchid, small veins of orange crawl across the petals. It's a good flower, and I am saddened to throw it in. It's such a waste that it spent it's life growing and blooming and reaching for the sun only to have an ending hidden down below the dirt.

But as I toss it on the coffin I realize aunt Rose was the same. Delicate in body but strong, and way too young to be there. I find myself wondering if she'd ever gotten flowers from a man. Perhaps the boy from the postcards? What happened that they ended up so far apart?

We drive home in silence. The inside of the car filled with the smell of the incense that has clung to our hair and clothing. When I finally get to my bedroom I rush to take off my dress, scratchy and shapeless and made much too big for me, and hang it in the back of my closet. Behind dresses and shirts with funny sayings and t-shirts with pictures of cats. The sleeve of the dress sticks out mockingly, as if it refuses to be buried. As if I should feel anything at all for a symbol I knew nothing about.

I silently creep down the stairs and out the back door toward my car, the mystery of the postcards calling me away from reality. As my body relaxes in the warm seat I closed my eyes and let the entire day float away. Today would start now. With lies and love and me in my secret place.

My fingers greedily reached into the box and  grabbed the pile of cards.  I gingerly grab  the top one from beneath the poorly tied ribbon and rub my thumb across the bold black print. Today's card has a picture of a young man holding a messenger bike. His goofy smile present despite the rain.

I have six months left and I can't imagine a single day more. I'm counting them down as I imagine you are too. I think of your smile every day. It's the sun that wakes me in the morning.  Remember the tree? Let's go back and carve our names again, on the other side so it can be seen from every angle. I got your letters, five in one post! I had started to think you had forgotten. Don't forget me, and our promise. 

I place the card at the bottom of the pile and wrapped my arms around myself. He had loved her. And she had loved him as well. And yet, they hadn't ended up together. Where had he been?  What had happened to the boy?

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Originally this book was going to flip from current to past, giving these glimpses of how she became who she was. But the passing of Rose took more time. This part, I felt, needed to be told.