The Magical Language of Others

by E.J. Koh

Children have no concept that every moment comes to end, but rather feel as though their suffering, at present, will last for an eternity.

“My chest is tight,” she said. “Will you hold bitter feelings against me?”

If you have no suffering, you have no story to tell—isn’t it true?”

This next time, I want to be born as Eun Ji’s Mommy again to live and become a better Mommy. Or should I be born as Eun Ji’s daughter? If you give birth to me as a pretty and nice person, then I can agree to it?

Nobody loves you like your mother and father. Not your husband, and not your children. While your parents are alive, eat as much of their love as you can, so it can sustain you for the rest of your life.”

“There was one woman, prettier than anyone. It was my own mother.

I looked like my mother, my mother like her mother, but no one would say I looked like my mother’s mother.

I was my father’s daughter because there was in me, other than my face, this love for my mother.

“Your fate is to become a hunter—you will look for it everywhere, anywhere you go. Your hunger will teach you what you’ve lost.”

Languages, as they open you, can also allow you to close. When I felt myself running toward seclusion, I heard my grandmother and my great-grandfather urging me to try—and how much harder one must try when learning to love. She never asked me to speak but to understand, rather than endure to forgive, and never to sacrifice, only to let go.

“Forgiveness doesn’t need a reason. It doesn’t follow a logical thought, so it frees you from having to be reasonable.”

“My parents didn’t give me happiness,” I said. “But they set me free. They gave me freedom.”