Noeul Jung São Paulo, Brazil
Noeul Jung
S?o Paulo, Brazil
November
Appa, eomma,
I’m writing this letter because I’m trying to be more open with you. We talk on the phone from time to time, but there are things I’ve kept inside for years. Things I still don’t know how to say when I hear your voices.
Maybe writing them will be easier.
For a long time, I believed I had to be a good son, a good brother, a good friend. When Gong had his first episode, I felt completely unprepared.
One thing never changed: how much he relied on me.
So, I stayed.
Even when I didn’t know what to do.
There are things about those years I still can’t tell you. Maybe one day I will.
But there is something I need you to understand now.
I needed you too.
I know you loved us. I know you worked hard for us. I know you were frightened by what was happening to Gong, and perhaps neither of you knew what to do either.
But sometimes I wish one of you had looked at me and asked whether I was all right.
Not whether Gong had taken his medication. Not whether Ji-Woo was safe. Not whether I could handle things for one more night.
Just whether I was all right.
I’m not writing this because I’m angry with you. I don’t want to blame you or reopen wounds that have already taken so much from our family. I think I’m finally learning that loving someone and admitting they failed you can exist at the same time.
When Gong came out to you, something changed for both of us. At first, I was afraid to tell you about myself. I didn’t know how much weight you were already carrying or how much more you could hold.
Telling you the truth about who I am was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It mattered to me because you matter to me.
I needed to know that being your son wasn’t something I could lose by being honest about who I was.
There’s something else I want to say.
I’m sorry for the pain I caused you during the years when I was struggling.
I regret hurting you.
But I’m learning something that has been very difficult for me to accept:
Not everything was my fault.
I did the best I could with what I knew then.
Over the past few months, I’ve been trying to learn how to take care of myself instead of constantly trying to take care of everyone else.
Appa, eomma, I love you.
I always have.
I don’t want us to spend the rest of our lives talking around everything that happened because we’re afraid the truth will hurt too much.
When I come home, I hope we can learn how to be a family again. Not the family we were before. I don’t think we can ever go back to that.
Something new.
Something more honest.
Until then, please take care of yourselves.
And take care of Ji-Woo. But don’t spoil him too much. He’s already impossible.
I hope one day the four of us can go hiking again, like we used to. Maybe we can share a meal afterward.
Eomma, I still miss your cooking. Will you make my favorite dish when I come home?
I think I’d like that very much.
Saranghae.
Noeul
P.S. The painting I’m sending is about family, about roots, growth, and the things that survive even after a storm changes their shape.
I hope you’ll hang it somewhere it can be seen.
Not because our family was perfect.
Because it survived.