Crying in H Mart

by Michelle Zauner

I struggled to write her eulogy, to find the words to encompass her in a single page. It was difficult to write about someone I felt I knew so well. The words were unwieldy, engorged with pretension. I wanted to uncover something special about her that only I could reveal. That she was so much more than a housewife, than a mother. That she was her own spectacular individual. Perhaps I was still sanctimoniously belittling the two roles she was ultimately most proud of, unable to accept that the same degree of fulfillment may await those who wish to nurture and love as those who seek to earn and create. Her art was the love that beat on in her loved ones, a contribution to the world that could be just as monumental as a song or a book. There could not be one without the other. Maybe I was just terrified that I might be the closest thing she had to leaving a piece of herself behind.

If dreams were hidden wishes, why couldn’t I dream of my mother the way I wanted? Why was it that whenever she appeared she was still sick, as if I could not remember her the way she’d been before? I wondered if my memory was stunted, if my dreams were consigned to the epoch of trauma, the image of my mother stuck where we had left off. Had I forgotten her when she was beautiful?