A widower groping his way

I am here and she is not. Time flows and I stay here. I have nothing special to do and I have no plans. I have how many years, months or days to live? I don't know. Things just happen. I have nobody to call. I am alone. Heesun's place in my life was too large and nothing can fill the void caused by her absence. And I feel so lonely and purposeless. Aimless. Time flows. I am here. But who is that 'I'? I just spend a little money on games because I don't have big money to move to a tropical island and forget about all the shits that happened to me so far. I am stuck in this dull and cruel life. Maybe I am making this life even more pathetic than it has to be. Maybe I know nothing about anything at all.

For as long as I can remember, even when I was a five-year-old kid, I was a pessimist. I always had a feeling of lethargy about my life or the human existence in general. I used to sit alone on a seesaw while other kids were playing together in the kindergarten school. I saw them and had a vague wonder that how they could be so cheerful. I was a gloomy kid. Living this life seemed to me a toil and making a child seemed to me, just like Flaubert thought, an act of cruelty. Heesun changed such thoughts inside of me. She turned my life into something simple and acceptable. I was just a man living with his woman and his kids. I was able to feel myself as a normal member of the society. I was one of them. Now that Heesun is gone, I see nothing that connects me to this world except my sons. I have a responsibility to them because I committed the cruelty of letting them into this world. That responsibility will be lessened when they can take care of themselves and find their spouses. I

Think about the time I have to spend alone until I die. Then, things get hard to bear. I need to focus on small things that need to be done. Things that can occupy my mind and help me pass each day. I need to live like an animal as an embodiment of the present as seen by Schopenhauer. Like a dog happy with its bone in his paws.

The best way for me would be to finish this boring existence by swallowing death pills or throwing myself off from a tower. Unfortunately, I cannot do that because I have two sons to take care of until they grow up to be independent. I am not tormented by endless thoughts of my dead wife. What makes me suffer is the thought that just like her horrible death, my life is also meaningless. Why go on living this farce where happiness and misery are not given in a fair manner but only chance prevails? I am disillusioned and want to go out of this life. And I can’t do that because of my responsibilty to my sons. Everything lost its urgency or importance for me. The most important person in my life is not in this world. Nothing needs to be done. I start reading a book and I stop. I start writing a memory and I stop. I don’t have to finish anything. I think about another reality, a parallel universe, where she is still alive and beside me. I imagine. Sadly, my imagination is so blurry

I need to know and find reasons why things were like that for my wife and me. I know the world does not care about my need. Or does it care? Maybe not. I read books on astral projection and souls and near death experiences. I got no final answers. I am more confused now than before I read the books. My question is simple. Why such a meaningless pain and death for her? Painful treatement for cancer for 1 year, a short deceptive recess, and more than 1 year of the process where she gradually lost her bodily and mental functions and had to die as an empty shell in which her mind and feeling was totally erased. Books on souls says that these painful experiences and even death was planned in advance by the very person who have them. They plan them to learn lessons in this life. It is not that I believe everything I read. I just want an explanation that I can accept. As long as something is explained, I can accept it no matter how cruel or painful it is. I need an explanation, a jus

what have I done to suffer this kind of life? was I that bad person? why did my wife have to die? why

I realize that it is impossible for human to keep fixating over an idea for ever. For me, the most haunting idea for the last twelve months was that Heesun has left me for good at least in this life. As days go by, it’s becoming less often that I remember all the painful memories of Heesun losing her mind and bodily functions and my miserable feelings watching her slowly dying. Those memories will not leave forever, I know. I will always look at my empty bed at night where she and I would make love. But I am becoming rather insensitive than before and getting used to the reality that now it’s only me in this world.

I had a stupid car accident yesterday. It was my stupid mistake. I have to pay about 200,000 KRW even if I am covered by insurance. I am getting increasingly absent-minded these days. Because my car is in a repair center now, I had to take a bus this morning. Right now, I am on the subway home. This makes me tired, using mass transportation. I am writing this post on iPhone using Poster app, while listening to an audiobook called “bright lights, big city”. I listen to the book to take my less than satisfactory level of English to a higher level. I don’t know how long I have to live. 30 years, 3 years, or 3 months. But one thing certain is I have nothing impending or highly meaningful now that Heesun is not here. I can learn all major European languages, learn to play piano and violin. Or even other crazy and unthinkable things. But nothing changes the picture in which I will be a man sleeping in his bed alone every night. I JUST DON’T CARE. By the way, I should do this shi

May 2nd was the day my wife died last year. Definitely I cannot say I overcame the sense of loss and despair that has been with me for the last one year. But I think less and less about my misery. After all, what has happened happened. I will not touch my wife’s plump thigh while driving or hug her from behind while she’s doing the dishes. I will never have her again until I die. And even the possibility that I will meet her again after I die is dubious. I read many books on after life. All they say are plausible but not a direct experience for me. I am getting used to the reality that I should live a life where there is no woman I love and make love to. Last night, I played Tombraider game on PS3. Watching the nice body of Lara Croft and her doing fantastic action moves gave me a strange kind of pleasure. Here is a woman, a young, beautiful and healthy woman with a strong character and power. And I can move her body the way I want. It was a weird combination of voyeurism and

Last night, I thought I would die because of short breath. It was so difficult to breathe in bed. I was thinking, then. This is it. I stop smoking today. And I bought cigarettes again when I got to work. I am a hopeless case of weak will power. I tell myself again and again. “You should survive for your sons”. Then I pick up the pack and go out to smoke almost automatically. It’s as if my mind wants to survive but my body wants to kill itself because it cannot bear loneliness. My strong bet is I will go out again to smoke right after publishing this post. Totally irrational…

I look ahead of me. Years, months or days to live alone. My health is getting worse everyday. I know that I cannot get her back. I know that she is not here or at least cannot contact me even if she still lives as a soul. I had almost no reasons, justification for existence until she came into my life. Now that she is not around, I ask myself “what reasons do I have now for living?” The answer is just one. My sons. But they need me until they grow up and can take care of themselves. It will be about 5 or 6 years. Maybe 10 years. I don’t know if I can live that long. I don’t know whether my health will be good enough to stay around after 1 year from now. She had to die in spite of everything I did to save her. Maybe it was her fate. Then, what about my fate? Everything I did was useless to save her. Now, everything I do to live until my kids grow up may be also useless. I could not change her fate. How can I expect that I can change my fate. Maybe I should just wait until God o

I keep smoking. I throw cigarettes and buy them again. I am afraid of the future. I have lost direction in my life. I am sad and tired and sick. I am listening to Chopin’s concerto No.2. It’s 4 pm Sunday.

She died on 2nd of May last year. Now it’s almost one year from her death. My health is getting worse everyday. Will I die before the day when she died comes again? I have burning sensation over my back and chest. Something could be wrong with my lungs. Or something wrong with my stomach and feed tube. I just don’t know. What I know is the passage of time has lost meaning to me. Growing old with my wife must have changed everything. Raising kids with her. Watching them grow. Making love to her at nights. Touching her soft body and kissing her lips. I will never have that again. The thought that I will have none of that in my life ever again, that she will not be in this world ever again. This thought is enough to take away all the meanings from my life. I know I should stop smoking. But I bought cigarettes again today. This burning sensation gets stronger everyday. I am not afraid of dying. I am afraid of pain, though. I have to live, not for me, but for my sons. If I die, they have

She died on 2nd of May last year. Now it’s almost one year from her death. My health is getting worse everyday. Will I die before the day when she died comes again? I have burning sensation over my back and chest. Something could be wrong with my lungs. Or something wrong with my stomach and feed tube. I just don’t know. What I know is the passage of time has lost meaning to me. Growing old with my wife must have changed everything. Raising kids with her. Watching them grow. Making love to her at nights. Touching her soft body and kissing her lips. I will never have that again. The thought that I will have none of that in my life ever again, that she will not be in this world ever again. This thought is enough to take away all the meanings from my life. I know I should stop smoking. But I bought cigarettes again today. This burning sensation gets stronger everyday. I am not afraid of dying. I am afraid of pain, though. I have to live, not for me, but for my sons. If I die, they have

까뮈는 시지프의 신화에서 철학적으로 의미가 있는 유일한 질문은 자살이라고 말했다. Il n'y a qu'un probleme philosophique vraiment serieux : c'est le suicide. 삶의 가치가 없다면 계속 사는 것은 무의미한 짓이니까. 영화를 보다가 더 이상 볼 가치가 없다고 생각되면 도중에서 나가버리는 경우가 있다. 물론 엄청나게 재미없는 영화일 경우에. 자살도 비슷한 행위다. 그러나 사람들은 대부분 자살자를 비난한다. 끔직하게 무의미하게 따분한 영화를 끝까지 보아야 한다고 강요하는 격이다. 왜 그럴까. 지겨운 영화를 끝까지 지켜보는 것과 중간에 자리를 박차고 나가버리는 것, 어느 쪽이 더 자신에게 잔인한 행위인가? 삶이라는 영화는 결말이 너무나 뻔한데도 인간들은 좌석에서 일어나지 않는다. 주인공은 반드시 죽고, 다른 등장인물도 다 죽어버리는 진부한 스토리의 재탕인데도....

When I think about it, it seems I hated my life even before my wife died in May 2012 because of glioblastoma. Glioblastoma is not a name of an alien life-form. It is a horrible brain cancer that kills 80% of the patients within 1 year. I did my best, though I sometime faltered because it was too hard to serve as the only caretaker for my wife, for the three year period from 2009 to 2012, to save my wife. I failed. She died. My life sucked the very moment I found out she had the cancer and it still sucks. Why I hated my life before all this happened? I used to tell my mother in my teens. “If you had asked me if I want to come out to this world before you gave birth to me, I must have said NO.” My mother’s typical response to this ungrateful remark was “You, son of a bitch.” Anyway, the point is I was a pessimist since I was a boy. And my life turned to the direction that made me more and more of pessimist. The only thing that made my life meaningful was my wife. She was a down-

아내가 세상을 떠난지 10개월이 되어 간다. 그러나 아내가 상태가 악화되어 정상적인 대화가 불가능하게 된 것은 훨씬 전이었다. 정신적으로 아내가 내 곁에 더 이상 있지 않았던 것으로 따지면 거의 2년전이 된다. 실질적으로 홀아비 생활을 한지 2년이 되어간다는 얘기다. 정신의학적으로 스트레스를 매길 때 가장 높은 것이 배우자의 사망이라고 한다. 홀아비는 같은 연배의 기혼남보다 배우자 사망후 6개월 동안에 사망율이 60%가 높다고 한다. 이런 통계는 상실감, 일상 생활의 어려움 등을 원인으로 돌리고 있다. 나의 정신을 나날이 갉아먹는 가장 큰 느낌은 가장 가깝던 사람이 갑자기 이 세상에서 존재가 지워져버린 것에 대해 느끼는 공허감, 허무함이다. 사후 세계에서 개별적인 의식이 유지된다는 주장은 개연성이 있지만, 나는 그것을 체험하지 못했다. 이 세상에 내가 묶여 있는 한 내가 매일 반복해서 느끼는 것은 한 인간의 존재가 지우개로 지운 것처럼 사라져버렸다는 사실 뿐이다. 내가 만질 수 있고, 이야기하고, 바라 볼 수 있었던 한 인간이 지워져버렸다는 것. 그리고 세상은 그런 것과 상관없이 여전히 돌아가고 있다는 것. 내가 이 육체에서 벗어나서 다른 차원을 볼 수 없는 한, 아내의 죽음은 허무한 종말일 뿐이다. 아무도 아내를 기억하지 않는다. 심지어 나의 머리 속에서도 아내의 기억은 날이 갈수록 희미해져 간다. 죽은 정승보다 살아있는 개가 낫다는 속담은 비속하지만 죽음과 삶에 대해 이 세상에 살아 있는 인간들이 본능적으로 갖는 느낌을 정확히 표현한다. 천국을 믿는 예수교도들 조차 그렇게 좋은 천국에 빨리 가고 싶어하지는 않는다. 죽음을 넘어서는 그 무엇도  이 세상에는  없다. 한 인간이 남긴 업적, 후손, 기억. 그런 모든 것들도 살아남은 자들의 기억에 의존한다. 그리고 그 인간들도 죽고, 잊혀진다. 한 인간의 죽음은 하나의 세상의 종말이다. 인간은 타자의 죽음에 대해서 의미를 부여하고, 위로하고, 기억하고, 갖가지 정당화를 할 수 있지만, 막상 자신의 죽

아내는 음악을 그다지 좋아하지는 않았다. 음악을 싫어하는 정도는 아니었지만 하루라도 모짜르트를 듣지 않는 날이 없는 나와는 달랐다. 노래방에 가도 노래를 시키는 것을 싫어했다. 아내가 노래 부르는 모습을 본 것은 한 두번 정도 뿐인 것 같다. 그러나 매일 음악을 - 특히 모짜르트를 - 틀어놓는 나의 습관 때문인지 한번은 신촌의 백화점 지하통로를 같이 걷다가 음반점에서 흘러나오는 모짜르트의 클라리넷 협주곡을 듣더니 "이 음악 좋네"라고 말하는 걸 보고 " 세뇌가 되었군" 하고 속으로 웃었던 일이 기억난다. 애들 저녁을 먹이고 둘이서 가끔 뒷산 공원을 걸었던 적이 있었다. 그날은 이어폰으로 모짜르트의 피아노 소나타 K.310번을 듣고 있었다. 늦가을 저녁의 한가로움 속에서 아내와 함께 산책을 하면서 소나타의 2악장이 흐르고 있을 때 나는 잔잔한 행복을 느꼈고 나중에 늙어서도 둘이서 이렇게 산책을 할거라는 생각을 하고 있었다. 아내가 병에 걸린 후 같은 음악을 자주 들었다. 사람도 못알아보고 말도 못하고 음식도 못넘기는 상태가 되어 요양병원에 들어가고 나서는 매일 아내를 보고 올 때도 차안에서 그 음악을 자주 들었다. 하나의 아이러니는 사실 모짜르트는 빠리에서 어머니를 잃은 슬픔에 잠겨있을 때 이 음악을 작곡했다는 점이다. 아내와의 안온한 미래를 꿈꾸는 산책로에서 듣기에는 이 소나타는 어울리지 않는 음악이었다. 오히려 불길한 전조 같은 것이었다. 지금도 아내가 생각날 때 해블러가 연주한 이 음악을 듣는다. 이제는 음악과 상황이 어울리게 되었다. 죽은 사람을 그리워하는 음악. 모짜르트는 어머니를 그리워하고 나는 아내를 생각한다.