삼촌

The following essay was written by the nephew of a store owner who was part of the armed defense of Koreatown during the 1992 Civil Unrest.  

In the weeks after learning about my uncle’s death, the most striking thing was the silence and uncertainty. To this day, I still only know a few details. I’m still not sure why it happened, how it happened. I have heard only short rumors, mostly secondhand, whispered behind the thin doors of our house. I heard it had something to do with the business, something to do with debt. I heard that he had been diagnosed with dementia, just as my grandmother had been, that he did not want to put his family through the same suffering he once experienced. His daughters had skipped town and left for the Midwest and he had felt abandoned. He had been suffering in silence and my father knew nothing of what was going on. In the end, I don’t know how it happened, how he ended things. I don’t know which explanation is true, or even if any of them are true. I don’t know if there had been any clues, any hints, anything leading up to what happened.

I feel ambivalent about digging into things, trying to discover the cause or explanation. I had always seen him as a strong, charismatic figure—a large presence at family gatherings, boasting and telling outlandish stories, clapping us on the back, forcing us to speak our broken Korean so that he could poke fun at us, singing old Korean songs in his loud, baritone voice, pressuring us to go on marathons with him, an obsession he made sure to foist on as many people as possible. I am still recovering from the shock of learning that this image of him, which I had built up in my mind, was so disconnected from what was beneath. I still feel lost from learning that maybe I didn’t know my uncle, not really at all. 

There is a part of me that wants the full explanation so that maybe I can finally move on and stop dwelling in uncertainty, so that I can process the truth of what happened. But there is another part of me that doesn’t want to know, that wants to ignore, to move on, without having confirmation of anything, without knowing for certain any details or explanations, which would consolidate what had happened into something concrete. It’s a part of me that wants to let things stay how they are, to let them stay shadowy and unreal.

Our family gathered for the first time since COVID after the funeral. I felt a strange sense of belatedness, that this reunion was long overdue. We ate lukewarm Korean food, from the same catering place as usual, as if it were just another get-together. Everyone was speaking as if nothing was the matter. I felt a deep sense of anger and frustration that we hadn’t tried for something like this sooner. 

I wonder how much of this experience has been cultural. I have often heard the common story, almost a stereotype at this point, that Koreans are not good at talking through emotions, that we avoid therapy, avoid reaching out for help. This may have been true, but was it because he was Korean? No doubt, in the weeks afterward, I was left in the dark, things were kept exceedingly hush-hush, but wouldn’t that always be the case, in circumstances like these?

I understand the impulse towards silence, towards secrecy. It’s about preventing pain, or at least trying to. Some things are better left unsaid, unknown. Ignorance is bliss. Why should I be troubled with the details? Why should I have to know something that will cause hurt and pain? Why should we stir things up and further aggravate the issue? It’s much better, it might seem, to move on, to let time take its toll, to let things smooth over, to one day forget it all and go back to normal, back to how things were. But isn’t it this same impulse that led to what had happened in the first place? 

Several months later, I still know very little. We have passed over the event in silence. Our family has, for the most part, moved on. I think of my uncle at times, when something sparks my memory, but he is no longer a constant presence.

Something in me thought maybe the event would have brought us together, strengthening our bonds so that it might never happen again. And yet, though COVID no longer restricts us from visiting, though we have run out of excuses not to visit, ultimately there seems to have been little change. Now every encounter with a family member induces slight discomfort.

When the other day a cousin visited, we just cycled through the customary small talk about careers, relationships, her new life in a different state, but he seemed to be haunting us all the while, somewhere in the background. Everything felt peculiarly forced, artificial like we were acting out roles in a play. Maybe it was all in my head. And what should we have done anyways—bring it all back and spoil the mood? Never be able to speak pleasantly, just to return to how things were? I wasn’t sure if it was cowardice or stoic virtue that made us carry on as we did.

I thought by this time I would have received something like closure. But I’m beginning to think closure might be a myth, something found only in movies and books. Life of course isn’t a clean narrative, with discrete chapters or endings. There is progression, change, but little resolution. The closure I have had is that of moving on, of coming to think less about it. My parents have started to mention him briefly in conversation, a sign that the thought of what happened is no longer fresh, no longer as real. I am sure they have done their own processing, behind closed doors.

I have fantasized at times about the moment of catharsis, the epic conclusion, the long tearful conversation in which all is revealed and he is finally “laid to rest.” But these have remained fantasies. And would such a conversation really do anything? Can anything but the passing of time make a difference?