Summer is a Speck of Dust
Halmeoni spends weeks preparing for our summer visits. She goes to the wet markets to buy the choicest steaks and the roundest plums. She tends to her makeshift garden, harvesting minari and burdock, her back folded like origami paper as she hunches over the balcony greens. She lays short ribs and daikon, apple pears and gingko nuts into a ceramic pot to brew Galbijjim, skimming the fat and impurities off the surface each morning. She does this for days, and this work is not easy. No, this is a labor of love.
Halmeoni packs Gimbap in the early morning, when even the sun is asleep. Spreading thin coats of sesame oil across a bamboo sheet, she rolls tight layers of seaweed, rice, beef, pickled radish, carrots and eggs with deft, practiced hands. Later, she takes my sister and me to the riverside, where we learn to fly kites. Guiding the string taut, we watch the red and yellow dots smear across the blue horizon. When the wind dies down, my sister and I play tag, chasing clumsy circles around the picnic mat Halmeoni has neatly laid out. When we get tired, we fight over who gets to sit on her lap. We take turns, with Halmeoni stroking our braided hair and popping pieces of Gimbap into our open, laughing mouths.
Halmeoni lays out a feast as I set the table. Every available inch is laden with bowls of knife-cut noodles in a deep, piping hot seafood broth, or tender slices of pork belly waiting to be wrapped in rice and lettuce, or my favorite, Galbijjim. The longer you brew it, the more you can draw out the sweetness of the pear juice and chestnuts, the brightness of jujubes and carrots, and the tender richness of the beef. Halmeoni hardly eats when we sit around the dining table, the mahogany shining from the effort of her care. She is too busy spooning meat onto my plate, or wiping the saucy corner of my sister’s mouth, or scolding my mother for not finishing her vegetables.
Halmeoni darkens her hair with henna, erasing the streaks of white that keep seeping in. She lets me smear the sticky, black paste onto her scalp, and I wipe the extra dye across her eyebrows. She spends the next few days looking like Angry Bird. I convince her that she doesn’t look a day over thirty.
Halmeoni peels oranges and makes jams and climbs mountains to find the most fragrant herbs for flavoring soup. Halmeoni is always aching, so she soaks her feet in hot water every night, massaging warmth back into her body. Halmeoni prays every morning, eyes closed and hands clasped as I hear her repeat my name over and over. “Dear God, let Izzy make good friends. Dear God, let Izzy do well on her college entrance exam. Dear God, let Izzy be happy. Dear God, let Izzy be loved.”
Halmeoni complains about her creaking knees, her blurring vision, and the way she rattles around the house, a lone marble in a tin can. She signs a lease for a smaller apartment, this time with no garden, no balcony, and no mahogany table. We help her with the move: I carry the TV, my sister carries the clothes, and my mother carries the china and the silverware. Behind us, Halmeoni clambers up the stairs, hands gripping rail. Bearing her own weight is enough of a burden.
Halmeoni’s new kitchen is more of a kitchenette, and our meals are just as simple: purple rice with fried eggs and kimchi, steamed sweet potatoes washed down by a cool glass of soy bean milk. Halmeoni’s new bathroom has grab bars and a pink rubber floor mat, to prevent her from slipping in the shower. Halmeoni’s new home has only one bedroom, so the four of us sleep together, a soft tangle of limbs and blankets on the wood floor.
Halmeoni insists on driving us to the train station, her head barely peeking over the steering wheel and her toes barely reaching the gas pedal. She hums to the radio and tells us how happy we’ve made her since we’ve come. In the rearview mirror, I see a tear spill out of her smiling eyes.
Before we leave Halmeoni, I hold her tightly. I feel her bird bones under leathery skin, I feel her little hands pressing against me with a force disproportionate to her size, and I feel the lump in my throat tighten, unable to speak or say goodbye.
From the window, we wave to Halmeoni as the train begins to chug along the tracks, and we keep waving until she is little more than a speck of dust – floating, glittering in a sunlit room.