To my lost ones in the north

I’m sure they don’t believe they’re lost — they’re only lost to me, since I’ve never met my family in the North half of Korea. It’s a matter of perspective, as with much else in life. I am, myself, born of South Korea, my aunts, uncles, cousins and one grandmother, born of South Korea. We have cell phones, gaming and internet shopping. We have cars and pizza. We’ve been lucky enough to take electricity for granted. Things they have little to none of, in North Korea.

My parents were born when their parents were, quite literally, on the run. Bombs falling everywhere, they were diving into ditches in the countryside. It was the mad dash from the North, the specter of a divided nation growing dark and real in their desperate hearts. Families were being split by the second because war is as real as life and death. If you had the will to live, what else could you do but run??

There’s whole clans of direct-line relatives from 3 of my grandparents’ sides that I’ve never met. I used to wonder about them when I was little, though it was more of a generalized, “do they wear grey all the time? How about gruel? Do they eat anything else but gruel?” Of course they had neither toys to play with, nor television nor really warm coats to wear in their famine-encrusted winters. It wasn’t fun to imagine life in the North, but intriguing nonetheless.

This morning I came across something that reminds me that anything and all is possible:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/feb/14/northkorea

It’s difficult to understand how anyone could have family members somewhere in the world, but never have met them when it is at all times a real possibility. Even distant relatives. That, my friend, is a couch to crash on. That, my friend, is stories around the fire at night. That, my friend, is whole parts of you that go on breathing and feeling without you even knowing. How well could you claim to know yourself?

And now, the possibility of my meeting my lost family has become a bit more real. We shall see it happen, my friends, and we shall see it sooner than we think. Maybe we are all lost family to each other?

Someone recently said, draw a circle around the ones you love, not a heart. Because a heart can break while a circle goes on forever. On this Valentine’s Day, along with the ones I’ve come to know and cherish in my life, I’m gonna take the opportunity to also draw a circle around the family whom I’ve never known, whose names have never broken the seal around my ears, whose faces have never lit up with life before me. I will think about my lost ones and I look forward to the day when I will meet them, in this life and in these times, when the specter dies, at least for a moment. We will all be together, happy and drinking together like we had always known each other, knowing how very precious every moment is when you are with your own, and countries and hearts are whole once again.

Because the specter is real, my friends. Without it, life would not be the vivid gift that it is.