Grandma's Lamp

13
Grandma's Lamp on the Pine Hill,1956



Dano could not get what was in his mind across to his family, to his elementary school friends and to whoever he was in contact with. The folks around him could not guess how much he was traumatized by the recent incidents, either. He had sobbed unawares over the parting with the dear cow because of his ignorance and betrayal; He had flabbergasted over the sudden disappearance of his brother and his parents' silence pact; He had mulled over the nocturnal wails at Cheongdo Refugee Camp; He had sneezed and frowned on the stench of the dung fields; He had from time to time shaken his body over the gunshot noises and the images of the pitiful falls.

Dano was a lonely boy in Sun Valley. He was all alone; had no one to talk to; had no friends to talk with. His grandmother Mrs. Euiseong Kim was busy nagging her poor daughter-in-law who was also busy whining and weeping. His father Toung Doung was also busy tilling in the fields or cutting the woods.

There was no peer pressure but peer torture. The bullies at the school village and nearby villages had a good time taunting him, alienating him, playing harsh pranks on him, and cursing him, "Let the tigers eat you up!"

He had developed no skills to respond to that bullying. The boys of the peer age had to become buddies, but they always turned out to be bullies: They were predators prowling the hills for the poor prey. There were no interactions: Dano plummeted into the bottom of a great reservoir onto which all the garbages had been thrown away, sunk, and deposited.

Dano sought solace in nature. Nature was all that he had depended on: She was a true friend to converse with, a mentor to consult, a mother to whisper to, a judge to appeal and a god to pray to. Mounting any hill of the valley, reclining on a hilly grass surrounded with tall bushes, looking up to the clear autumnal sky, savoring the aromatic air coming up from valley creeks, pines, wild flowers, and low hill reeds, seeing iris beam at him, he acquired peace.

Warm sun rays, which were shining celebration and consecration on him, soothed him to doze off, finally to slumber. Even in those catnaps, fairies used to take a visit to him, seducing him, whispering to his inattentive ears, "Live with me, honey!" Still, it's a mystery how the fairies had come to materialize in a eight-year-old boy's dream as mature women, not juvenile girls.

Boy Dano had had no girls in the neighborhood to speak to, much less to play with. There had been no girls about him at Sun valley. At the faraway school, there were girls, of course, but he was shy, so shy that he did not get near them nor looked at them. It's another mystery what it had meant by the pretty women's seduction remarks, "Live with me, honey!"

To Dano, there were only two categories of women in the world: the victim and the victimizer. His mother Boolim Lee was a victim who had been nagged, reprimanded and scolded, and cursed by her heartless mother-in-law and his grandmother Mrs. Euiseong Kim was the victimizer who had been destroying every minute of her daughter-in-law.

Boolim had a tough time weeping and whining. There were no men of understanding, symbiosis and harmony. So to Dano, women of the world, and girls of the world, too, would hurt him or be harmed by him. There were only women of extremes; There were no women in between. He despised women and was afraid of them at the same time. He did not get near the school girls, either.

To Dano, a major impediment to his long-distance walking commute to and from school was the weather factor. The hot and cold temperatures were an obstacle, of course, but they were a minor one. The rain and snow precipitation was a major obstacle for pedestrian commute. Regarding Dano's long-distance commuting, Dano's Father Toung Doung took a standoffish attitude and his mother did the same, too, because Dano' grandma was the only one who could control, that is, who could decide to run the gauntlet.

When snow fell heavily, Mrs. Euiseong Kim opted to keep her grandson from attending class. But more often than not Dano was insistent on going. On one winter day in the year 1952, at his fourth class year at the elementary school, he had had huge snows. He was looking out the classroom window anxiously while snow went on falling.

So when he hit the road back home, he had to trudge through the white pile which had turned disastrous during the five-lesson period. And when it rained it almost always poured, and the problem was that when he got to the stream that became a river the kids of the village had already crossed it. He had almost met early death once when he had gotten hit by the running rocks while crossing for himself the rapid stream which had swollen suddenly.

Although pranksters were all around, it did not mean that all the surrounding situation was against him. Mr. Kwon, Dano's fifth- and sixth-year classroom teacher, was a very sympathetic and compassionate gentleman, and his wife was also very nice. When blizzards struck and when rainstorms darkened the sky, the kind-hearted couple invited Student Dano to stay at their home.

But the peers were deadly against him. When dusk fell after six class lessons, the peer boys and girls hurried home where the whiffs of smoke were coming out of the house chimneys, which hinted that supper was being cooked somewhere in there. The boys jeered as they raced into their village homes, throwing curses on Dano, saying "Tigers will eat you up!"

There was not a tiger, of course, but the curse words gave him a chill in the back. And there had been a moment fright came on him so much so that he froze when it drizzled on the moonless valley and when he passed the roadside grave shrouded with night mists. But he could not turn around and run. If he had done it, he knew he would not be able to return home and that actually there was not a home which would welcome him back. So he knew among all things that he had to keep going because his grandma was waiting for her dear grandson on the hilly pass, holding a kerosene lamp.