Impromptu

I found myself at a crossroads approximately 1.5 minutes ago when I had this urge to post this heart-tugging photo of my grandparents celebrating my grandpa's birthday.  Yet again, I questioned the dichotomy of publicly sharing and privately sharing.  I've noticed a pattern within myself; a willingness to share when the opportunity arises, but truly feeling dumb when I want to share a part of myself that has to do with family  on social media.  Is it that I think that Instagram followers, Facebook friends alike lack the ability to dissect what I put on social media, that I don't trust others with information, or that I'm shy?  I'd like to write off such sharing as unnecessary and that in many ways, I'm lucky because I'm willing to share on this blog.  It is true that only one other person knows of this blog's existence (as of know, hopefully) (soon to be changed when I overcome shyness).

So why in the world were today's photos so heartwrenching in the paradox of happiness and sadness?  Well, I called my grandpa in the afternoon to wish him a happy birthday and when I was talking to my grandma, she kept repeating that she loved me (사랑한다 수진아 보고싶다 수진아).  This is completely out of character, a bizarre act for my grandma.  She is one person who has the biggest, most generous heart, but has the world's hardest time verbalizing affection.  Even though she was scary when I was growing up because of the language barrier and because she would dig her nails into my hair when she bathed me and my cousin, I've come to understand her as a maternal and paternal figure when my dad passed away.  She and my grandpa were the ones to pick me up the day my mom was at the hospital, when I still knew nothing of his fate.  They held up strong and haven't wavered in their stability since.  They moved closer to us.  They paid for my private school education.  They taught me to eat well.  They never made me feel insecure about "immediate family" since they could fill up seats at my middle school graduation and high school graduation.  It's funny to think that I had it wrong this entire time.  After moving closer to us, because of their old age, my mom's responsibility to them has increased.  Even when eating dinner with them every weekend, I thought that we were the ones doing them a favor by keeping them company in the midst of their boring, repetitive retirement weeks.  But I was wrong, they kept me occupied enough to stop dwelling on the absence.  They filled me with presence and they teach me in their quirky ways that a long life is worth living.

I should know better than anyone that life is both fleeting and worthwhile.  I should know better than anyone to treat them with a hundred times the attention they ever gave me and I try, but I can never achieve compared to what they have dedicated to me.

In the end, it doesn't matter who knows through social media that I love and respect my grandparents through a "post," it matters that I show them through actions, words not captions, and showing face not idyllic pictures.