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My Fleeting Life – A Guitar Long Silent in Its Weeping

Introduction

Tucked away in a quiet corner of the storage room, in the first home I’ve called my own since 2014—
decades after arriving in America as a young student in 1982, and 16 years after coming back for good—
rests a plain, unremarkable guitar that remembers more than it reveals.

I once practiced guitar briefly, for about two months at a cousin’s house, long ago.
 But I had no talent for it, so I let it go—and I’ve never owned one since.

The guitar that sits here isn’t mine. It was left behind by my only child, my son, during a visit.
 He doesn’t come here anymore. We no longer keep in touch - only my wife sends him a text message once or twice a year.  
Time flies by like a loose arrow, and some days I find myself wondering if he’s even alive. 
And when I discover that he is, I exhale a silent sigh of relief.

Every so often, I pick up the guitar and try again. But if I couldn’t make it sing in my youth, how could I now? 
The guitar, untouched and mute, has no reason to weep. It simply waits- a silent witness in the shadows of the room.

Looking back, I realize that throughout my life, not only could I not play the guitar, 
but I haven’t been able to truly play life itself—neither in Korea nor in America. 
Other than bringing my son into this world, I feel I haven’t achieved anything. 
With high hopes, I drifted to America and gave birth to my son here, but those dreams were shattered.
 I returned to Korea with him, unable to find my footing there either.
 I wandered, unsettled, and eventually came back to the U.S., only to spend my days in idle drift. 
And now, I've arrived at the twilight of my life in this place.

With so little I've accomplished, there hasn't been much I could give my one and only son. 
Even so, hearing that he’s found his way into a professional career and is steadily building his life—despite the hardships—
fills me with pride. When he graduated from university, then studied for another four years in graduate school, 
and spent five more years completing a professional internship,
I was so preoccupied with survival that I couldn’t offer him financial help.

When he completed it all and his internship workplace held a graduation celebration for him, 
I saw in him what I never managed—his first achievement in life.
 When he stood at the podium to give a speech, surrounded by warm applause and smiling faces,
 I couldn’t hold back - I wept for a long time, joined by a few people seated at and around my table.

That once-proud son stopped coming home about two years after entering his profession. 
He no longer plays the guitar he left behind.  And so, it has remained silent for over five years. 
Sometimes, I gaze at that mute instrument and
 recall the brief, precious memories I shared with my son—only to return to my haphazard, struggling life.

Not long ago, when a neighbor held a garage sale, I briefly considered giving it away. 
But I couldn’t. That guitar is the only thing my son has ever left behind in this house.
 Even if I cannot make it weep, I hold onto it
with the fragile hope that someday, he’ll return—and coax a song from it again.

To throw it away would be to surrender that hope.
So I keep the guitar. The one that has not wept for so long.

While waiting for the guitar to weep again, I am writing my life story for my son—
so that, even after I am gone, traces of my existence will remain in a quiet corner of his memory. 
With those memories as his foundation, I fervently hope he will live wisely and happily, 
avoiding the mistakes and misfortunes I endured for most of my life.

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