I was supposed to observe someone in my family for a week and then write about them...
i was going to write about my dad but at the last moment i chose my mother...
i cried while i made this so it kind of sucks... (yes i cried, its personal get over it)
so bear with me.


My mother lives in a hell she created for herself.

She was born in Korea during the post-Korean War and grew in relative poverty to a hard working but tough father and mother, she lived a life of poverty; not horrible poverty, but still poor.
She has horrible bouts of rage, tantrums, fits, ect... victimizing her family; with unwanted focus on her husband and 1st born mistake. These aggressive emotions she displays are justified by many things, including her PMS, and small things that anger her; she is a perfectionist, and the littlest of things can bother her and anger her if done wrong, and this is the major reason why her tantrums start in the first place.

She is alone. My mother has no friends and no family in the United States, and consequently spends days upon days alone, trying to fill out her life with the Asian Soap Operas, obsessive cleaning, chores around the house, and cooking. She has lived here for 14 years, but her stubbornness has left her to being unable to adapt to the culture of the United States; and so lives in a state of permanent tourism, unable to fit into the culture and always looking in on the outside.

Euna Stumpf is incapable of making decisions for herself, having become too dependent on her husband. Because of this, she has done many things that she regrets; one, leaving her home country of Korea for job opportunities in the US and promise for better life, thinking she would escape the horrid poverty, only to dive into more with her husband and new family.
She can not last more than a day with out any of her family members, and they are her only real purpose she see's in herself, to up bring them and sacrifice all of her time for them.

I can remember the days when she was still young, and I was nothing but a boy with a love for the outside and a fear for my own home.
I would stay out as long as I dared before having to go home.
I remember her usual mood, brewing due to her boredom in the house, she set to think and brood and ripen until all reason dissipates and what's left is a thing of nature; because that's what she was.
You could not blame her for doing what she does, only accept that she does it and you shouldn't take it personal, you where just the nearest.
At times it got horrible, you would find yourself backed up in the corner, snot seeping over your lips and tears curving around to drip from your chin.
There would always be a switch in her hands.
Sometimes it was just the unchecked horrid things that she yelled without caring for the consequences; and at others it became physical; like I said, she never adjusted to American Culture.
I would scream at those times until my throat grew hoarse and my tears dried on my cheeks.
I can say that I have scars from the switch hitting my calves many times, and I can describe to you things that would make “a child called it” look like nothing... but I won't. You get the point, and that's all that needs to be done.

At the same time I can remember her sobbing and being in the same position I was, drowning in her own tears and snot, feeling the guilt of the things she does, and the shit she has compiled together to make a miserable existence she calls life.
I realize, that I can forget myself; because I can let go easily whatever she does, but she will never be able to be free from her burdens and pains, she will live with everything looping in her mind as she sits another neutral and bland day inside the cage I call home. I can remember her at the table with me, sitting over one meager bowl of rice, crying, saying she is sorry for not being able to give me anything better; and stroke my hair lovingly as I ate HER dinner.
She starved for me.
I can remember the times she would scrimp and save crumpled wads of cash in order to buy my small plastic dinosaur for my birthday; notice how she had been wearing the same tattered shirt for the last year, or fit into the same pair of jeans my father got for her when she was young and beautiful.
I can remember.
The summer nights when she and I would open the window wide, having no air conditioner, and just lay in the same bed, talk about everything.
Maybe she wasn't alone... she had me; until I grew and became to big for her and all the pain she gives and all the love.



(Is it appropriate to say I just cried for 10 minutes? I just did a whole turn back on my life and all the things my mom and I went through... all the hardships, and I realize... I wouldn't have it any other way, you win this time Barker... you were right about how this could change your look on things)


I would never switch anything in my life.... more money, a better mom, anything.
What I went through helped make me who I am today; I can confidently tell you that I am mature, that I am responsible, that I am a leader, that I can take contention and stress beyond normal levels, that I can sacrifice... and I thank all of that because of my mother.
It seems I am meandering more towards me and not her... but this is her legacy... she puts everything she had left in her into me; its all she has in this life.

She's not perfect, and there are somethings that I won't be passing on to my children, the anger and such, but let me tell you.








She won't be disappointed, she won't have wasted her life for nothing.