Monologue About Sewol

Why do I continue to scroll through my phone and click on the links that will inevitably fill my heart with grief?

How much more grief and sorrow must mothers and fathers, brother and sisters, friends and classmates be feeling about their lost friends?
I first saw the news about the sinking of the ferry on an afternoon buzzing with emails and assignments that I skimmed over it, pouted, and continued to go about my day. As the day went on and winded down, I was able to look over the details of what happened more closely, my heart becoming more and more wrung with sorrow.

Alleged text exchanges hours apart, reminded me of the text exchanges I have with my mom daily. Pictures of anguished faces continued to haunt me before bed.

The news cycle is constant with tragedies with social media exacerbating the tensions. My aunt tells me she had to turn the TV off. The air in Korea is thick with grief.

What happens when a country can no longer absorb the cries and tears of its people?

Who in the world spreads fake messages exchanged and false news about new survivors? Who would dare to have the grieving breathe in hope for a split second just to break their hearts again? What kind of police block the way for parents to see justice brought to their children who were just about to experience life?

This kind of tragedy makes me think about the inevitable last moments of my life. Would I be as brave as some of the dead, who risked their lives for strangers? Would I be as cowardly as the captain who abandoned ship? Would my wish to live overcome me and curse the rest of my days?

I can’t sleep at night, to imagine kids not yet at the age where they’ve been able to blossom, crouched beneath the sea, waiting to be rescued.

It is against the rules of nature for parents to have to bury their child. But to have these children lost in the sea, to not be able to hold them or see them, to never being able to say their last good byes, this cruelty of the world weighs down my heart, a heart that is fortunate enough to not be affected by this tragedy. How much more must this cruelty weigh down on those grieving?

Pray for South Korea.

Pray for South Korea.

Pray for South Korea.