I don’t have many memories of having conversations with my father. It seems that was typical for father-son relationships back in the day. However, I do have several memories of my father. For instance, going to the neighborhood tavern at dawn to pick up my father who fell sleep after heavy drinking, visiting the ancestral burial site in Yaksugol with my father to pay respects to my great-grandfather and ancestors, and cooling off in the stream nearby, or accompanying him on business trips and having market-style noodles for the first time at a tavern.

 

Today, I wanted to reflect on my memories with my father connected to the medicinal spring water. I believe it was when I was in the fourth grade that we moved from Sokkomoti to Moamdong. A 30-minute walk from our house in Moamdong would take us to an area filled with fields and paddies. In one of the fields, there was a small pond. Whenever I developed a skin condition, my father would take me there to bathe completely naked. I remember the first time I bathed there—it was late autumn, and the water was so cold it sent shivers down my spine. But that water was medicinal. Strangely enough, even one bath was enough to heal my skin. The pond was a cold spring that worked like a miracle cure for skin conditions. Every single family member of ours benefited from that pond.

 

My late father also relied on that pond many times. To help you understand, I need to talk about my own health. Though I might look fine on the outside, I was frail and prone to illness from a young age. Things got worse when I failed the college entrance exam and had to move to the big cities with no money, spending all my time in study rooms, which severely damaged my stomach. Instead of recovering during college days, my condition worsened as I struggled with part-time jobs, forcing me to take a leave of absence after the first semester of my second year and return home. My stomach practically stopped functioning, and I could barely swallow anything. My condition didn’t improve and kept deteriorating. The thought of “What’s the point of living like this?” filled my head, and I even contemplated ending my life.

 

Being an atheist at the time, such thoughts consumed me. One rainy night, I climbed to the peak of Geumosan Mountain, intending to jump off a cliff. But when I stood at the edge, I realized falling from such a height would probably hurt quite a lot. So I returned home, this time considering drinking pesticides. But as I faced the idea of death, I couldn’t stop thinking about how my parents, especially my mother, would survive the loss. At that moment, I resolved to live no matter what. I started with small steps, taking tiny spoonfuls of porridge, chewing over a hundred times for each bite while constantly telling myself, “It will go down, it will go down.”

 

Seeing me in such a state, my father decided to help me in every way he could. Hearing from others that boiled lacquer tree with chicken was good for the stomach, he went to the lacquer tree grove near the medicinal pond to gather the trees. He would cook the lacquer in a big pot in our yard, adding a little chicken, and make me consume it. Even though I could barely swallow water at the time, he made me drink three bowls of that repugnant concoction every day throughout the summer. Strangely, while I built up an immunity to the lacquer and had no adverse reactions, my father suffered terribly every time he prepared it. He developed allergic reactions all over his body because of the lacquer’s toxicity. But he would go to the medicinal pond, bathe, and recover each time, only to prepare the mixture for me again. Remembering his sacrifices fills me with profound gratitude.

 

Writing this down has brought back vivid memories of my father and our time together.