Mother is Mother

His mom only had one eye. He hated her. She was such an embarressment. His mom ran a small shop at a flea market. She collected little weeds and such to sell anything for the money they needed. She was such an embarressment. There was this one day during elementary school. It was field day, and his mom came. He was so embarressed. How could she do this to me, He thought and threw her a hateful look and ran out.

The next day at school... "Your mom only has one eye?" ..and they taunted him.
He wished that his mom would just disappear from this world so he said to his mom, "Mom.. why dont you have the other eye?! If you're only gonna make me a laughing stock, why dont you just die?" His mom did not respond.. He felt a little bad for behaving like this, but at the same time, it felt good to think that he had said what he wanted to say all this time.
Maybe it was because his mom hadn't punished him, but he didn't thought that he had hurt her feelings very badly.

That night...

He woke up, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. His mom was crying there, so quietly, as if she was afraid that she might wake him. He took a look at her, then turned away because of the thing he had said to her earlier, there was something pinching at him in the corner of his heart. Even so, he hated her mother who was crying out of her one eye.
So he told himself that he would grow up and become successful because he hated his one-eyed mom and their desperate poverty.

Then he studied real hard. He left his mother and came to Seoul and studied, and got accepted in the Seoul University with all the confidence he had. Then, he got married.

He bought a house of his own. Then he had kids, too. Now he was living happily as a successful man. He liked it here because it's a place that doesn't remind him of his mom. This happiness was getting bigger and bigger, when..

What?

Who's this?
...it was his mother still with her one eye. It felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on him. His little girl ran away, scared of his mom's eye and he asked her, "Who are you? I don't know you!" as if trying to make that real. He screamed at her, "How dare you come to my house and scare my daughter!"

"GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!!!"
and to this, his mother quietly answered, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address" and she dissappeared out of sight. Thank goodness... She doesnt recognize him, he thought. He was quite relieved.

He told himself that he was not going to care, or think about this for the rest of his life. Then a wave of relief came upon him.

One day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to his house. So, lying to his wife that he was going on a business trip, he went. After the reunion, he went down to the old shack, that he used to call a house...just out of curiosity to see.

There, he found his mother fallen on the cold ground. But he did not shed a single tear. She had a piece of paper in her hand. It was a letter to him.
"My Son,

I think my life has been long enough now and i wont visit Seoul anymore but would it be too much to ask if i wanted you to come visit me once in a while? I miss you so much and i was so glad when i heard you were coming for the reunion. But I decided not to go to the school for you and I'm sorry that I only have one eye, and I was an embarressment for you.

You see, when you were very little, you got into an accident, and lost your eye. As a mom, I could not stand watching you having to grow up with only one eye so i gave you mine. I was so proud of my son that was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye. I was never upset at you for anything you did. The couple of times that you were angry with me, I thought to myself, 'It's because he loves me'

My Son... Oh, My Son...

I do not want you to cry for me, because of my death. Please dont cry my son, i love you so much."He burst into tears. He could never forgive himself for making the biggest mistake of a lifetime. He realized how lucky he was to have a mom like her and how selfish he was that he never even cared for her. It was the extremely sad day for him. He would never get her mom back.