When I Loved You

do for your mother.
I should have tried harder.
I should have looked for different treatments for her.
I should have gotten better medications… These thoughts keep plaguing me.”

“Dad…”

“I feel guilty toward your mother for being alive.
I didn’t want to tell you this… but I wasn’t a good husband to her.
It’s my fault she wasn’t happy when she was alive.” They had both lost the same person, but the ways they processed the grief could not have been more different. 

 Yiyoung had tried her best to cheer up her dad, but he only got worse as days passed by.
Back then, she naively believed time would heal all the wounds; she had to, or she would not have been able to endure the miserable treatment at school.

Times were difficult then, and Yiyoung had no one she could talk to.
Eventually, her father’s depression started gnawing at her, too.
She suddenly felt guilty for saving money for her college instead of contributing to her mother’s medical expenses, and it made her fall apart.

She forgot how to laugh, and spent days suppressing her anguish.
There had been no one in her life who could guide to healthily express herself and recover from the disaster she had become.
She spent every day just waiting for it to pass.

But one day, as she had been cooking ramen for dinner like always, she received a phone call. “Am I speaking to Mr.
Yoon Joongho’s daughter?”

She did not understand why, but immediately, she had a premonition.

“We’re taking your father to the ER.
He’s in a critical condition, so please come to the hospital as soon…” Yiyoung had not stopped to hear the rest.
She mindlessly turned off the stove, slipped on her shoes and ran out of the house.
Even as she hailed a taxi and sat inside, she remained blank.

But the moment the doors to the hospital had opened and the sterile, antiseptic smell hit her, the seriousness of the situation sunk into her.

Apparently, her father had been drunk and blacked out on the road, only to get hit by an unsuspecting driver who had not spotted him.
After all, nobody could have expected to find a person sleeping in the middle of the road at night.

After she lost her dad, every string that connected her to the bright world snapped.
She did not have the strength to move on, and had lost all interest in her future.
She hadn’t wanted to do anything.

However, when she dropped out of school and cooped herself up inside her house, Sangsu stepped in.
With him, he had brought warmth and cheer, and his encouragement helped her feel alive again. 

Yiyoung shook her head, forcing herself to stop dwelling on the past.
The cries of the woman echoed in her mind, yet she walked on.
She had to remind herself that this was a hospital, and it was all about life or death.
Some people rejoiced and others despaired.
Nobody should have to feel they were wrong for laughing at the hospital, and she definitely did not want someone to feel blue because of someone else’s sorrow.
Things like these were the norm here, and all people could do was accept it.