The Magical Language of Others

by E.J. Koh

Forty-nine letters were discovered after an unknowable number had been trashed or forgotten. In Buddhist tradition, forty-nine is the number of days a soul wanders the earth for answers before the afterlife.

When you feel a little better, if you want to talk to Mommy again, call me. I’ll be waiting.

You know to live all you can and always boldly, right? Eun Ji must be happy so Mommy can be happy.

The present is the revenge of the past. There is a Korean belief that you are born the parent of the one you hurt most.

A mother in pain may scold to the point of her own tears.

Children have no concept that every moment comes to end, but rather feel as though their suffering, at present, will last for an eternity. One small thing, taken away, was to feel the loss endlessly.

my parents began to let out their hateful thoughts about each other.

My mother said, “I’ll just die.” “No, I will,” my father said. “Why do you get to die?” “Because I did all the work!” From the passenger seat, my mother must have considered his words. In that second in the car, something closed inside her, and her face softened. My mother opened the door until the light from outside filled the car. “You did all the work?” she asked calmly. “Then what am I?” Death must have seemed more approachable than her husband. My father said, “Don’t joke around—” Suddenly, she jumped out.

She said to me, about the trouble with reincarnation, “What universe must God create for these souls to meet again and resolve their obligations?”

We will look back at our time apart and laugh together and be sad, but we will have many stories. If you have no suffering, you have no story to tell—isn’t it true?”

“When you age, wrinkles don’t make you older. They make you look more like yourself,” she warned me. “Everything comes to the surface eventually.”

Pay attention to your health, and times like these, read a bunch of good books. Things you don’t know, things you can’t experience, all of it lies inside of books.

You see, God is vengeful, so we don’t have to be.”

Sure, it’s not easy for a person to live their life. For adults or babies, it’s all the same. Our feelings are different (because our thoughts are different). Because our wants are different. Actually, everyone’s the same. Our sadness, sometimes, our joys. Our (hopelessness, despair).

our lives, being given to us, is the most precious time. Of course, the ups and downs go together, but let’s not (waste) any moment not feeling happy (not being happy).

Who says love that is painful is not love?

Prettiness is God’s “gift” to you, but mindfulness, honesty, skillfulness, and good-heartedness are earned by your own (efforts). The more you’re given, the more you must carry modesty and remain humble.

The trouble with hiding is that either you are found before you are killed, or you are killed before you are found—death hides you forever.

and how it was I who made my parents and my grandmother believe I never heard them and it was I who could not forgive anyone or I who did not try to get away from where I was and it was I who had put myself inside a room such as this.

Whatever he had wanted to say, he then stopped trying to get it across to me. Any thinking could not do away with the problem of overthinking. We sat in silence for a while.

What we see changes according to what we look for.

It might be true that one’s suffering and the suffering one has caused are the same.