Old Enough to Listen to Fairytales Again

Kim Misook

81 years old

Heart failure

Misook had lived to see her son and daughter become grandparents of their own. She lived to be called jeungjohalmoni, great-grandmother. She lived to watch her spouse leave, to attend his funeral in a wheelchair.

She lived long enough for her failing brain to succumb to Alzheimer, leaving her in constant distress and bewilderment, not to recognize her children’s faces or remember her husband’s name.

She lived long enough for hospital bills to pile up like mountain ranges, making her children dispute and worry over who would take the burden.

Burden, she repeated inside her head, the word that had pierced her weak heart like daggers sometime before. But now, as tranquility embraced her at last, she felt numbness arise from deep inside, like the sensation before narcotics started to drug her before surgery.

No, it wasn’t like that; the ethereal sensation she experienced now was just ten times better… and she felt distant as if she was looking at someone else’s story, not hers.

It’s been a long since she stopped counting her age, but Misook knew she was now considered old enough to die naturally. Old enough that people wouldn’t mourn and weep at her funeral.

She was ready to leave.

“Hm?”

She turned to the looming presence of a shadowy figure beside her as if expecting a friend.

“It is time to go,” the Reaper said.

Misook could already hear the ebbing tide in her ears. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, inhaling what no longer smelled of chemicals and sickness but of youthful liberty. “I know.”

She slid out of bed and took the Reaper’s hand. The nursing hospital floor felt like fluffy clouds as she drifted out of the room like the autumn breeze.

“Will you die someday, Reaper?” Misook asked as he helped her onto the boat. The boat swayed from side to side, trying to find its balance in the shifting waters.

“I shall die on the Final Day.”

“What day?”

The Reaper took the seat facing the old woman and began to row. “The final day of the existence of the universe.”

Misook’s mouth opened to a wide, toothless grin. “Sounds grand.”

The Reaper looked up with his empty sockets. “May you do me a favor?”

Misook nodded. “Anything.”

“May you describe love to me?”

Misook closed her eyes, lined with wrinkles and fragile eyelashes as delicate as butterfly wings. “Let’s see…” Misook smoothed out her white gown and inhaled the sea that did not smell of demise but instead of a blossoming entity. “Love is staying. Constant and unchanging.”

She faced the Reaper. “It is what gives us hope.”

Hope? It was another term that the Reaper couldn’t recognize. All he could do was faintly imagine it to be a good thing.

“Is that… good?”

“Hm? Of course, it is,” Misook said without a hint of doubt, chuckling at her humor. “We know that we’ll grow old and die someday, but we hope for better tomorrows, and that is why and how we keep going.”

The boat rocked back and forth with each gentle wave as if it was a cradle being rocked to sleep.

Misook’s life unspooled before her eyes like a ribbon of film.

She closed her eyes and let her mind drift back to the beginning. She remembered the first time she felt her mother's fondness when she was just a tiny embryo floating in the warm amniotic fluid. She remembered the way a rhythmic heartbeat soothed her and the way a gentle voice sang her to sleep.

She remembered the evenings she would cuddle up next to her mother on the couch as she read her stories. She would lose herself in the magical worlds her innocence believed, where brave knights fought dragons, beautiful princesses kissed handsome princes, and good always triumphed over evil.

Misook smiled as she remembered the way her mother would tuck her in at night and kiss her on the forehead. She was too young to understand the complex definition of love back then, but love was like a warm blanket, wrapping her up in safety and security.

Misook knew that she would never forget the affection she grew up in. It was the one thing that would always stay with her because love was what made her. The endearment she had sank into her bones and dissolved into her flesh; it was hers forever.

As she drifted to sleep, Misook thought about all the good times she had shared with her mama. She knew that she would never be able to repay for all the sacrifices she had given her for granted, but she hoped she knew how much she loved her.

Misook took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was ready to go. She was ready to be with her mother again.