Excerpts from The Land of Silent Morning (2009)
Mom said something to Dad. I don’t know what she said, but in a split second, the wood cutting board was flying over her head . . . the top of her head was split open. Streams of blood flowed down her forehead. I felt threatened by Dad’s action for the first time. I couldn’t breathe from all the crying. I handed her a towel, hoping that the bleeding would stop. As she held the towel down on the wound, she asked me to fetch her traditional Korean dress. I brought her an orange colored folk dress. While she put on her dress, I tried to hold the towel on her bleeding head. It was the first time I saw blood and I was scared. Finally, she had decided to leave all of us. She realized she could no longer bear her sufferings. She made the choice because she felt there was no hope. She went out the door full of tears in her eyes and up to the dike behind our home. I followed her as long as I could in the blizzard . . .
It seemed our luck had turned bad again . . . I was in the kitchen sitting quietly near the stove. Suddenly, the door flung open. My dad burst into the kitchen. He took the gasoline can into the room and poured gasoline over everything in it. He came back into the kitchen once more, grabbing the burning wood from the stove. I yelled very loud. “Dad, stop!” As he turned his face away from me and wiped his tears, I witnessed his tears. He was not a monster. That day, he almost killed us and our home could have gone up in flames. . .
