Good Enough

Yoon Hyeonseo

11 years old

Brain cancer

How would it feel to die? Hyeonseo’s mind wandered like clouds. To have the last wisp of air wiped away? The funny thing was, she didn’t feel at all. She didn’t hurt anymore. She felt so peaceful as if the storm had passed and the skies had cleared—as if the bad days were far gone with only better days ahead.

Her mom had been praying for her as the darkness faded and became dawn, and she was now sound asleep. Even with her eyes closed, Hyeonseo could conjure her mother’s bony frame and her restless head on the hospital bed beside her.

Maybe it was better this way, Hyeonseo thought without believing a single word. Maybe her mom would resume living life once she was gone.

Then as suddenly as a bowstring snapped in the air, Hyeonseo desperately wanted to see her mom as if it would be her last time. She sat up for the first time in weeks without requiring a helping hand. With her hand that felt as light as a feather, she stroked her mom’s greying hair, caressed her gaunt face, and brushed her closed eyelids and deserted lips. Her mom looked like a little girl too small for the world. Too weak for her farewell.

Mom.

She opened her mouth to say something. She thought of the million things she said but never meant and a million more left unsaid.

She tried to remember the last time she told her she loved her and was devastated when nothing rang a bell. Still, her mom would know. Hadn’t she expressed it in every way possible except by uttering the three simple words I love you? Yes, Hyeonseo nodded to herself; her mom would know.

“Thanks, Mom,” she whispered, trying not to feel too bad. It had been a good life, she was sure. A little shorter than what others have, but she had been so deeply loved and appreciated during every hour of her existence.

“Thanks for being strong when things were hard.”

She could almost feel her mother whisper the same thing back to her. It had been a tough battle, but she hadn’t been on it alone.

She couldn’t imagine herself saying the words out loud, but the words flew on their own like rivers. “Thanks for being my mom.”

The fabric couch standing by the corner started to fade from her vision, as well as piles of summer to winter clothes, baby blankets, and half-eaten porridges in plastic containers. The walls absorbed the small window, and they all disappeared like hallucinations, like whispers.

“Hello, little friend.” A voice spoke to her, a voice like molasses, slow and thick and deep.

She turned to him, unafraid of his presence but terrified of the news he would bring.

“I’m not ready yet, Reaper.”

His face, just bare bones, was as cold as moonlit stones devoid of color. “It would be easier for you to leave now.”

Hyeonseo turned to her lifeless body on the hospital bed, then to her mom again. “Just five more minutes.”

Five minutes passed, and Hyeonseo pleaded for five more until ten minutes turned into twenty, and an hour had passed.

The Reaper and the young soul watched the drifting silhouette of a nurse cover the dead girl’s face with a white shroud and detach the many tubes that strung her up like a marionette. The nurse acted calmly, respectively, in orderly precaution as if she had done it many times before.

The dead girl’s mother was devastated, shattered into incurable shards, broken like an artifact of delicate glass.

Hyeonseo was crying too, endless streams of tears flowing down her cheeks, and her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. The Reaper offered a black handkerchief, but Hyeonseo couldn’t take it from his hands that were not really hands but just dried phalanx bones and the lack of everything, so utterly heartless and submissive to the rules set by destiny.

“Time to go,” the Reaper said calmly.

He gently took her hand and pulled her to her feet. Hyeonseo yanked away because his grip lacked warmth and liveness like her mom’s, so deadly and cold. But she fell to his embrace when he offered it to her because it was somewhat sincere, somewhat comforting even still.

The Reaper guided her out the door to where there was no longer a corridor with tiled floors and plastered walls but an endless river. The Reaper helped the girl’s soul onto a wooden boat and started to row.

Time, the indefinite continued progress of existence, no longer played a role here. All there was were thoughts, just thoughts and fading memories without grief, remorse—not even longing.

“My little friend?” The Reaper spoke after what felt like a long train ride of thoughts.

Hyeonseo was staring out at the murky water rolling below her. “Yes?”

“May I ask you a question?”

The girl nodded, feeling tranquillity and calmness enveloping her as if she was about to drift into a dream rocked by the gentle waves.

The Reaper hesitated momentarily, cleared his throat, and framed his words. “What is love?”

“Love?” Hyeonseo turned to him. “Love is being there for someone when that person needs you. It’s about consistency and patience,” she returned her gaze to the water and almost smiled. “Love is giving. Mama loved me.”

The boat gently cut through the shimmering black waters, creating ripples like leaving longing traces for a way back.

The Reaper nodded, “she did.”

The further away they became, Hyeonseo’s memories dissolved behind her. Very gradually, she forgot everything she had ever done or thought of. She no longer remembered the sweltering summer at her grandparents' house, welcoming the daybreak with her friends at a sleepover, the cheese tteokbokki at the snack bar after school.

Or taking a bus to the hospital with her mom on a rainy day, watching her mom’s face change as if she has been given a death sentence, how the doctor explained without meeting her eyes, and how her mom cried.

And how her friends came to visit her with flowers and teddy bears and letters but got used to not having her around, making new friends at school, and coming less and less often as time went by. Forgetting her. Leaving her behind from their lives.

As the boat rowed on, Hyeonseo forgot them. And eventually, her mind erased her mom too.