My mom only had one eye.I hated her. She was such an embarrassment¹.

 

She ran a small shop at a flea² market and collected old clothes and some other things to sell for the money we needed. Once during elementary school, it was field day, and my mom came.I was so embarrassed and wondered how could she do this to me？I threw her a hateful look and ran out. The next day at school, my schoolmates asked me, "your mom only has one eye?!" and taunted³ me.

 

I was so angry with my mom and wished that she would just disappear from this world. So I said to my mom, "Why don't you have the other eye?! If you're only gonna make me a laughingstock!" My mon did not respond, I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, I felt so good to have had said what I wanted to say. Maybe it was because my mom hadn't punished me, I didn't think that I had hurt her feelings very badly.

 

For the words I had said to her earlier,there was something pinching⁵ at me in the corner of my heart. Even so, I hated my one-eyed mom and our desperate poverty. I told myself that I would become successful in the near future, so I studied very hard. Later I got accepted by the Seoul University, I left my mother and came to Seoul to study. Then I got married there.

 

I bought a house of my own. Then I had kids, too. Now I am living happily as a successful man. I enjoy the life in Seoul because it's a place that doesn't remind me of my mom and my past. This kind of happiness was getting bigger and bigger, until one day someone knocked at my door. It was my mom! And still with her one eye! It felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. My little girl ran away, scared of my mom's eye.

 

I screamed at her, "Who are you? I don't know you! How dare you come to my house and scare my daughter!" To this, my mom quietly answered, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address," and she disappeared out of sight.

 

One day, a letter regarding⁶ a school reunion came to my house. Lying to my wife that I was going on a business trip, I went back to participate in the reunion. After the reunion, I went down to the old shack⁷, which I used to call a house, just out of curiosity⁸. There I found my mom fallen on the cold ground. I did not shed⁴ a single tear.

 

Then a piece of paper in her hand came into my eyes. It was a letter to me.

 

My son,

 

I think my life has been long enough now, and I won't visit Seoul anymore. But would it be too much to ask if I wanted you to come to visit me once in a while? I miss you so much. And I was so glad when I heard you were coming for the reunion. But I decided⁹ not to go to the school…for you. I'm so sorry that I only have one eye, and I was an embarrassment for you.

 

You see, when you were very little, you got into an accident and lost your eye. As a mom, I couldn't stand watching you having to grow up with only one eye. So I gave you mine. I was so proud of my son to see a whole new world for me with that eye. I was never upset at you for anything you did. During the couple of times that you were angry with me, I thought to myself, it's because he loves me.

 

My son…oh, my son…

 

Don't cry for me because of my death. I love you so much.

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