“I am no longer afraid of losing”

I jarringly remembered the first time I saw my late Grandpa, hospitalized in the nursing home bed. All he offered me was a vacant glance devoid of recognition. I remember the feeling of being a complete stranger, realizing that relationships — even those thickly threaded with blood — are ultimately built upon a fragile, intangible glass of memory that could shatter at any time. Death does not appear when the heart ceases to beat; death appears when the brain fails on us — when memory corrodes. So that day, when I first saw my Grandpa in his white hospital robe, I was met with two deaths: the death of my Grandpa within me, as he stared at the family with an expressionless visage, and my death within him, the ceasing of my existence inside an individual.

It was natural for me then to become obsessed over forms of documentation, with objects that supposedly were imbued with life. If memory, as I believe, forms the foundation of all connection and existence in human life, and relationships are built on something so fragile, then I will seek any form of physicality to infuse them with a sense of immortality. I stored receipts from eons ago in boxes, stacked towering heights of coffee cup holders in my room, and heaped piles of Polaroids in the corner. e thought that I might one day forget, despite their evident insignificance, haunted me like a nightmarish apparition, manifesting as memories of Grandpa — of my pain in realizing he died never knowing he had a granddaughter — and fear that I would become him. Without a tangible manifestation that proved my life, my life transformed into seeming lies that I couldn’t assertively say was true.

But really, it always seemed that my desperate desire to embalm the past was only met with cold, foreign stares by the future, unable to recognize the stories those mementos carried. Loads of receipts with washed-out inks ended up in shreds, the mountains of cup holders became more burdensome than valuable, and Polaroids were pushed into the deepest corner of my closet, collecting dust. Despite physicality’s ability to embalm fleeting transience and defy the linearity of time, I started to doubt the supposed immortality documentation and hoarding offered us, realizing it all ultimately hinges on the reliability of our brains, which we desperately hope will not fail us.

My certainty in this realization solidified when I saw a photo of me and my sister when we were young, posing with a peace sign in a location so foreign, like a scene from a passing dream. My heart pounded, unable to discern when or where the photo was taken, and I sensed an immediate and unsettling realization that a piece of my childhood was robbed. It was a conundrum of the century — physicality cannot entirely preserve transience, but without the physicality that attempts to embalm the intangible, the stories lost in transience never seem real. Perhaps I was destined to follow in Grandpa’s footsteps, destined to encounter the pain of strangers who claimed to be my loved ones. Maybe farewells were inevitable.

*

Whenever my family gathered, my late Grandpa would be brought up in conversations, laughter blossoming as they reminisced about his eccentric hobbies and fiery personality. Grandpa had an odd interest in banging nails into any blank wall in his room to hang clocks. I suppose he needed a constant awareness of time, as his room’s four walls were adorned with more clocks than necessary, each ticking away at its own pace. Grandpa’s fascination with collections extended beyond

his clocks on the wall, illustrated by his array of wristwatches laid out in an orderly fashion on his desk, his huge toolboxes — filled with glue guns and small screwdrivers — stacked in the garage, and his variety of film cameras — reminiscent of those seen in old movies — all organized in worn-out leather bags. My dad laughed as he talked about these collections, jokingly remarking that they were a nuisance to deal with aer his death. “Your Grandpa was one hoarder,” he stated, fumbling with the shutter of a broken film camera. “ough, it’s nice that a few of these are going to good hands rather than rotting away.” He smiled as I gingerly picked out two film cameras from Grandpa’s collection.

As I ran my fingers across the curves of Grandpa’s camera, I pondered the collections in my room; my manga collection was ever-expanding, figurines of my favorite fictional characters occupied a hey portion on my desk, and posters of celebrities, bands, and movies I liked were rolled up in numerous poster tubes under my bed. My mother and sister would tease me for hoarding useless items that would ostensibly end up in the trash one day, but I could not visualize the person I am without this hoarding instinct in me. And while my boiling passion for collection had to forcefully come to a simmer when my sister and I had to share a room, I always dreamed of curating a gallery in my room, proudly displaying my collections in their glory. Perhaps I could bang some nails on the wall to hang shelves to organize a few of my favorite DVDs and plaster the wall with every poster I own. And for a second, I wondered what my Grandpa’s reaction would be, seeing my collections reflecting my deepest interests that gave me joy. Would he laugh? Would he point out the positioning of the posters and give me recommendations? Would he jokingly point out the lack of clocks on the walls?

e more I think about it, the more it becomes apparent that my late Grandpa and I share uncanny similarities. Both our rooms transformed into miniature museums, reflecting our shared interest in hoarding. We unabashedly presented our admiration towards the beauty of art, and our nonconformist personalities compelled us to challenge the status quo whenever the chance arose. Reflecting on our commonalities, I recalled the story of a time when Grandpa was almost apprehended by the police in the late 1980s, when the entire country of South Korea was heavily involved in their yearning for democracy. Listening to the anecdote for the first time, my sister pointed at me, “I can see her getting into the same situation as Grandpa.”

I then contemplated the presence of my Grandpa within me, which brought a jolting pang of comforting anxiety about where to draw the boundaries between his identity and mine — of what makes him, him, and me, me. As I gaze at my reflection in the mirror, my chest soly rising and falling in a subtle, rhythmic pattern, it sparks that I am living proof of my Grandpa’s existence. My very being manifestly proves that he experienced life fully: marrying the love of his life, raising a daughter and two sons, and taking the role of a caring grandfather who indulged in his granddaughter’s impulses, letting her ride on his elderly mobility scooter, allowing the spring wind to tickle her face as they whiz across the neighborhood. Transcending evident documentation that attempts to embalm moments in time and memories that impermanently reside in our mind camera, my breathing skin looked back at me, overlapped with the ghost of my Grandpa. And I realized that I am him in such unmistakable clarity that no replication of the past could ever delineate.

Mementos will be reduced to litter, and photo albums will wind up in the rubbish, like tiny origami pieces or haphazardly done crayon drawings from when we were in kindergarten that merely occupy space. One day, my brain might fail to recall the fondest memories of Grandpa and forget that I was once someone’s granddaughter. One day, there might be no way to prove that I’ve experienced something, with everything wiped to void. But I suppose, as long as I continue to live, everything and everyone will be immortalized. As long as I let my canvas overflow with foreign colors of people and relationships I encounter to create a painting of myself — and not be afraid to color others — transcending tangible forms of memories, the dead will only gain immortality. And maybe death becomes simply impossible. Even aer the halting of my heart, I will live in the souls I have met gazes with, even in the littlest, unnoticeable forms. So, even if I were to cease to exist, I would never do.

As this epiphany dawns upon me, a faint smile spreads across my face, realizing that Grandpa has never died — ever — and remains immortal through my very being. And perhaps I never died within Grandpa; that connection transcends physicality and memory. As I remember his final face, his eyes close, peacefully grinning, the whisker-like wrinkles at the corners of his eyes tug at my heartstrings — maybe one of those whiskers tells a story of a time when my Grandpa saw me for the first time, beaming at the sight of his granddaughter. And so, I am comforted knowing that even in the unconscious, every existence will live forever. And suddenly, I am no longer afraid of losing.