At some point in our lives, we feel the wind changing.
A day in early autumn, a day in early spring… …or a hot summer day when the west wind blows and foretells rain.
At that moment, on that day, I felt a subtle change in the wind within my heart.
I couldn't tell yet if it was a west wind or an east wind, but something was slowly turning.
I soaked in the hot bath and just stayed still.
In my mind, I, who had been chattering for a long time, was speechless and silent, and I stammered and asked myself.
“Why did you write this book?”
Before I could even answer, my lips twisted and tears began to fall.
As always, when I was in such a confusing situation, my heart was torn in two.
The first feeling was one of bewilderment.
It had already been two years since the book was published.
In nearly a hundred interviews and conversations with readers, I've heard this question.
I had answered.
Life, communication, forgiveness… … and of course, I gave very author-like answers to those questions.
But here I am, naked, soaking in the bathtub, crying.
To that one question, why did you write this book?
---From "Walking the Road Barefoot"

“If you tell me to throw it away, who would throw away something they bought… Everyone who lives has to live.”
“That’s right, Mom.
“Mom is a player.”
The daughter spoke in a joyful tone, as if she had suddenly seen hope.
It wasn't just eggs, there was also an owl with a broken leg, and there was also an incident where a chicken that had been discarded from a chicken farm because it couldn't lay any more eggs was raised and an extra basket of eggs was obtained.
When the neighbors' plants were dying, they brought them to Pilgrimage.
Strangely, those who were dying when they came to Pilgrimage were given the same water and received the same sunlight, but they were given new life and were reborn.
People used to say, "Jisoo's mom is such a strange person."
But even that pilgrimage could not save her husband.
She couldn't save the cows that were dying of illness around the time her husband died, she couldn't revive the bright light that was fading from her children's faces, and so, crucially, she couldn't save even a single one of her days that were falling apart.
That was beyond her reach.
---From "At the Time of Resurrection"

My grandmother did not die even after a week and a month had passed, just as the doctors had predicted, using all the power of modern science.
Grandma was just gasping for breath with a face as pale as charcoal.
My grandmother's breathing was as loud as the quack of a mad goose, so the relatives who occasionally stopped by the house to check on her didn't bother to go to her room. Instead, they would leisurely drink whiskey with ham, cheese, and salmon as snacks and talk about golf in the living room.
All he said about his grandmother was, “That gentleman has held out for so long… For your sake, he should go now,” with a very kind-hearted expression on his face, as if he were thinking of everything for his grandmother.
Then one day, the incident begins.
Although she was making an unpleasant, squeaking sound, the sound of her breathing, which had been relatively regular like a percussion instrument, began to break up and continue irregularly throughout the night.
Relatives gathered and sat around grandmother.
However, the grandmother was found sitting up in bed the next morning.
The reason I say she was found is because her youngest maternal uncle, who had been taking turns guarding her in case she passed away at night, was found dead next to her that morning.

---From "Grandma Never Dies"