Goodbye, Mom

Author's Note

41 years after her debut, Kim Joo-young finally writes down her name: "Mom."

Is there any word that touches our hearts as much as "Mother"? It's the name we call, the closest yet the farthest, the name we always call, yet never quite manage to pronounce properly.
"Goodbye, Mom" ​​is a song of longing and an intimate confession sung for the first time by the writer Kim Joo-young, now seventy-three and approaching old age, in 41 years since her debut.

From my childhood to the present, the only words I have said from the depths of my heart, words I have never felt ashamed of, were those of my mother.
Besides, the dazzling adjectives and noble rhetoric of love, oath, consideration, and humility that I had prided myself on having acquired since leaving home were nothing more than a pretense to conceal deception and fault.
This novel is a delicate record of a mother who was so clichéd.
_From the author's note

“I don’t know.
“I hate my mom more than my sister.”

『Guest House』 『Hwalbindo』 『The Sound of Thunder』 『The Fisherman Does Not Break Reeds』 『Hwacheok』 『Saltfish』 『Arari Nanjang』 『Anchovy』, and even 『Empty House』 published in 2010, 41 years after his debut, at the age of 73, Kim Joo-young, a natural storyteller, has never slacked off during his not-so-short career as a writer.
But, in all that time, that name has never been mentioned.
'mom'.

The writer finally calls out the name that everyone must carry in a corner of their heart.
It is the epitome of motherhood, lived by the author's own mother, as well as by all mothers of our time.

Our mother, who raised us through a long and arduous labor, breastfeeding us, and giving us her own flesh.
That stupid, stupid, ugly name, Mom is the 'most hated person' in the world.
The story of a foolish and stupid mother is thus portrayed even more foolishly and rustically, and thus even more painfully, by the skilled hands of the master, Kim Joo-young.


“Goodbye, Mom! Like fog, like seeds…”

At dawn, the phone rings with an ominous foreboding.
It's a call from my younger brother informing me of my mother's death.
'I' hung up the phone indifferently and headed to work as usual.
I arrived back home at dawn the next day and held my mother's funeral with a pretended half-hearted attitude.
The ninety-four-year-old man was completely withered.
My mother had never been seen lying down in her entire life except when she was sleeping.


They (……) moved the mother's body to the mortuary.
I met my mother lying down for the first time in my life.
Until then, I had never seen my mother lying down, except in bed.
To me, my mother was someone who stood there, always and everywhere. _From the text

The pitiful body becomes cold and hard, becomes salty, and soon burns.
The place where my mother, who had become a “handful of dust” with my younger brother, was buried is a place filled with sad memories of my childhood.
As I recall my childhood memories one by one, I, who had always treated my mother stiffly, feel my heart breaking more and more.


Before I knew it, I had become a child who was afraid of even thinking.

And I was completely alone.


'I' had no father.
He left me and my mother behind and went somewhere.
My family was always struggling, and my mother barely made ends meet by working odd jobs and earning wages.
My maternal uncle and his wife, who were unable to fulfill their duties, were also a huge burden.
Fortunately, my maternal uncle's daughter, Ae-sook, was my companion and took care of the young 'me'.
He also became friends with Jeong-tae, the son of the Kwon family, where his mother worked.

One day, my mother remarried.
I, who was afraid of and hated my stepfather, kept going outside.
Even Ae-suk, the older sister he had relied on, ran away in the middle of the night in collusion with his mother to avoid a political marriage with Jeong-tae.
There is no one for me anymore.
In the eyes of the young me, the sight of my mother trying so hard to raise me well only seemed pathetic.
In the end, 'I', like my older sister Ae-sook, runs away from home to leave my mother...

My mother left me in a careless manner, but I couldn't let her go in a careless manner.

The novel begins with a scene where the mother's death is told to her half-brother.
Even now, in my old age, I still cannot shake off the resentment I feel towards my mother, who forced me to leave my hometown and live as a wanderer. I consistently try to avoid my mother's funeral by being irresponsible.
But the sadness and regret I had for my mother, which I kept deep in my heart, kept making me waver.
Although your body has turned to ashes and scattered, your heart has not scattered and disappeared.
The moment you become famous, you come closer to me and faintly seep into my heart.
My mother left me carelessly, but in the end, I couldn't let her go carelessly.
After attending the funeral and returning with my younger brother, I find a lipstick that my mother had never used in a cheap plastic bag she had used.

Awu's hand picked up an object that was completely unexpected.
It was surprisingly lipstick.
Auga opened the lid and pushed the lipstick up.
The red lipstick made her face look cute, as if it were her mother's soul.
My brother and I looked into each other's eyes and remained silent for a while.
(……)
“Have you ever seen your mother wear lipstick?”
“I’ve never seen it.”
(……)
It was surprising that my mother had been carrying lipstick in her handbag for decades, whether she had ever used it or not.
A pang of pity struck the back of my head, thinking, "My mother was a woman too." _From the text

Something that even mothers themselves had forgotten while struggling to manage the difficult household and take care of their children, but something that they had hidden deep in their bags and treasured, something that children who had taken their mothers for granted had never imagined.
In the end, my mother was just like me.
The most foolish and painful story in the world continues like this.

I lowered my head and closed my eyes.
Even though I closed my eyes, something vaguely floated into my sight.
It was dust.
The fine dust that had been covering my heart was scattering and flying away into the darkness.
I remembered my mother's face, white with frost, locked in the freezer cabinet in the funeral home.
My younger brother's face, wiping away tears while downing a glass of soju, came to mind clearly through the dust scattering far away in the darkness.
Outside the car window, as darkness fell, a small mountain village leaning against the foot of the mountain passed by.
A long barley field crawling up a gentle hill, a zelkova tree with green leaves filling the front yard of Donggu, a pine tree trembling in the wind, a hedge of bent pine trees and zelkova trees, a poplar tree standing alone on the bank of a stream, and the sight of children from the mountain village riding rickety bicycles all passed by like a landscape. _From the text