when life gave me tangerines, it gave me two people who loved me in ways that shaped everything i am
Whatever path we take, life is hard anyway. As I grow older, I learn that it’s also my parents first life — it’s their first time being a parent. They already carry too much, so sometimes being independent is the only option. We try so hard to suffer alone, figure things out in silence, as long as our mom and dad don’t know. It’s fine.
My mother is where it all began. She passed her dreams on to me, not in forcing way, but she let go her big dream and sacrificed it once she gave birth to me. I was raised by a mother who had nothing, but still trying to give me everything. I really want to ease every weights that my mother carried alone for so long. No matter how much she endured, I can feel the struggles. I can always see it.
Just like Aesun, my mother had dreams that stretched beyond the small place called home. She wanted more — more than the routine of early mornings and long days, more than the quiet sacrifices that no one ever thanked her for. She had hands that were meant to create, a heart that longed to chase something bigger.
My mother wasn’t the kind of woman who stood in front of the world and shouted what she wanted. She folded her dreams like worn-out letters and kept them close to her heart, hidden beneath the layers of being a daughter, a mother, and a wife. But I could see it, in the way her eyes lingered on people who lived the life she never could, in the way she smiled a little too long when she talked about what-ifs.
She was like Aesun, a woman who stayed when life told her to leave. A woman who traded her life for stability, who planted seeds not only for herself, but so I could grow. She gave up everything she once wanted so I could have the chance to want more.
She carried her dreams in the way she brushed my hair, in the stories she told me about places she’d never been, and in the way when life pressed too hard against her, she still told me, “You can go farther than me.” As if it never occured to her that she deserved to go farther too.
And just like Geommyeong, I have my own Gwan-sik as my father. He worked quietly, relentlessly, becoming the roof over our heads, the hands that caught me every time I stumbled. He was the man who walked behind me, making sure the road was safe, even when I never turned around to look. My father loved out loud. He was a selfless man, the kind who would empty his pockets just to see me smile, who would wear the same worn-out shoes for years just so I could have new ones.
Although my father was not perfect like Gwan-Sik, he still gave me everything without hesitation. He made sure I knew, every single day, how deeply he loved me. He never let a day pass without reminding me — whether through words, gestures, or the way he stood like a shield between me and the harshness of the world.
They were two very different kinds of love. My mother’s love was soft, steady, quietly holding me together. My father’s love was loud, relentless, filling every room he walked into, like he wanted the whole world to know how much I meant to him.
And now, my father is gone. He left before I could say thank you the way he deserved to hear it. But every time I close my eyes, I can still hear him — telling me he’s proud, reminding me to stand tall, to live fully, because he gave everything so I could.
When life gave me tangerines, it gave me them — two people who loved me in ways that shaped everything I am. One taught me to dream, the other made sure I could. And now, every step I take is a love letter back to them, a quiet promise that their sacrifices were never wasted. I am who I am because they chose to love me louder than life itself.
My parents are living their dreams through me. And everything I have, everything I am — it’s because of their love, their sacrifice, and the dreams they planted quietly in the life they built for me.
I carry them with me, Always.
