At the end of this year, Chinese media reported the death of a grandmother. A hot topic worldwide because she was the oldest living person. However, the exact year of birth was not confirmed, so it remained an unofficial record, and the estimate in China was that she was born in 1886, 135 years old. Even if mistaken by a few years she had great longevity. Born at the end of the 19th century, she saw the 100th year of the 20th century and lived about one-fifth into the 21st century. The columnist when reading the article had a lot of questions he would have liked to ask her.
"Grandma, when did you feel it was the best time to live?" Grandma, when was the hardest and most hideous time to live?"
Why don't you ask your grandmother that? There will be people who will do it. Yes. My grandmother was not over 100 years old, but was born in 1902 and died in 1998, so she lived almost a century. In her old age, she liked listening to her eldest grandson's stories the most. She experienced the last years of the Joseon Dynasty, the Japanese colonial era, the Korean War, Park Jung-hee, Chun and Roh, and some of the recent governments.
Why didn't his grandmother tell her eldest grandson about her experiences of joy and suffering? She remembers that the most difficult time was when her cousins, who had attended good schools during the Japanese colonial period, came home after being caught and beaten by patrol officers for allegedly communicating with the independence army and studying unsettling ideologies.
The happiest moments were when she had a party in her hometown, and when she was able for a couple of weeks to leave her harsh married life in Pyongyang and attend a Bible school opened by a foreign missionary and study the Bible. It was a time of learning the Korean language with other girls her age. She will never forget the time they spent together.
Whether it is a long-lived Chinese grandmother or his grandmother, the important things in our lives are experiences and memories. Although it is everything in life for a human being, the experience and memory of a group is also history. This history, information, knowledge, lessons, and wisdom needs to past down to future generations.
Let's shift our focus from his grandmother, who shared her experiences with her grandchildren, to ourselves. We have to sort out and organize our life and the experiences contained in them. The key to finding meaning in the successes and failures of actions we took to survive by adapting to changes in the environment, whether we intended it or not, is what we call reflection.
He feels this year 2021 has gone by really fast. In fact, looking back at the end of the year, where is the time that doesn't fly like an arrow? Time is always slow at the beginning of any period, and at the end of the period, we are overcome by speed.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which began early last year, continues throughout the country. Despite the vaccination rate in advanced countries, including Korea, it exploded again with the new approach of living "With Corona". Concerns are now growing over the infectious power of the Omicron mutation. In this situation, what memories will be left as this year's experience?
He remembers the stories that his grandmother told him and the last stanza of the song she sang lingers in his head.
"What is your hope now that you have experienced the difficulties of life. Are the riches and honors received sufficient?"
