🎶 Dean Lewis - How Do I Say Goodbye

A relationship filled with the excitement of being with the person I wanted. A marriage swelling with hope. A time called happiness that filled that hope without a single gap.

And so, our love became the blessing of a family. Hae-un, our first daughter who turned fourteen, and Ha-jun, our seven-year-old son.

Happiness wasn't anything grand. Just an ordinary day flowing by without any worries. A daily life where the family eats together, laughs, and falls asleep safely today. Those trivial days were happiness, and they were something to be grateful for.

But people say this: misfortune always waits for its moment in the closest place to happiness. I really didn't know that those words would find us too.

At first, it was just an ordinary day. I brushed past my wife's back as she moved around the kitchen preparing for work, and Hae-un grumbled about being late while putting on her school uniform. Ha-jun dropped his spoon while eating and burst into sorrowful tears.

It was extremely ordinary. That's why it was even harder to believe.

"We need to... perform one more biopsy."

The doctor was explaining something at length. But only one sentence remained in my ears.

'It can be okay if we treat it.'

That was the only thing.

"Honey, they say it'll be okay if we treat it."

When I spoke with a trembling voice, my wife silently held my hand tight. And she smiled slowly. I didn't know then that the smile would disappear so quickly.

No, I didn't want to know.

For the first few months, it was bearable. My wife was a strong person. Even while undergoing harsh chemotherapy, she never once said it was hard. Even when her hair started to fall out, she grinned in front of the mirror and said,

"Don't I look kind of cool? Like a movie protagonist?"

Even though I knew she was forcing a smile, I smiled along. We left the children at my mother-in-law's house. I couldn't bring myself to tell seven-year-old Ha-jun that 'Mom is very sick.'

Our eldest, Hae-un, grew up faster than anyone. Seeing her try to fill her mother's empty spot without a word broke my heart even more.

Still, we believed. That it was just a temporary brake on a life that had been running too fast. That if we just endured a little longer, we could smile like before. That was the last hope we believed in together.

But reality was cruel. Our hope collapsed so futilely before just two words: 'metastasis.'

"...It would be best to stop the treatment now."

The moment the doctor finished speaking, I knelt before him for the first time. The title of professor I had maintained all my life, my dignity—none of it meant anything.

I grabbed the doctor's pant leg and begged, crying, to save her somehow, to find a way just one more time. I will probably never forget the memory of that day.

I knew the doctor wasn't a god. I knew better than anyone that even the most brilliant doctor couldn't defeat every disease. Nevertheless, at that moment, I wanted to believe.

That because he's a doctor, he could save her. That there must be another way.

But in the end, a miracle did not come. My wife, who had never once said it was hard while enduring the long and grueling treatment, said to me for the first and last time,

"...I want to go home. I want to see the kids' faces."

That wasn't a request. It was the last wish of someone who had already made up their mind. The doctor carefully recommended a hospice ward, but my wife chose home instead of the hospital. The place where the children were. The place where we had lived together.

It was a choice to remain as my wife and the children's mother until the end. In the end, we returned home, carrying a time whose remaining duration we did not even know.

A teenage daughter who grew up too early. A seven-year-old son to whom his mother's changed appearance felt only strange.

And me, who loved my wife more than anyone. The four happy family members, who used to be just ordinary, had to prepare for the goodbye with Mom, each in their own place.

Even though Mom is still by our side. We had to learn how to keep Mom's traces as memories, far too early.