Crying in H Mart

by Michelle Zauner

that was how my mother loved you, not through white lies and constant verbal affirmation, but in subtle observations of what brought you joy, pocketed away to make you feel comforted and cared for without even realizing it.

It wasn’t until years later, after I left for college, that I began to understand what it meant to make a home and just how much I had taken mine for granted.

I had fought for that dream thanklessly for eight long years, and only after she died did things, as if magically, begin to happen. If there was a god, it seemed my mother must have had her foot on his neck, demanding good things come my way.