fire walk with me

I remember my grandma telling me a story about how she had to get married to a man she barely knew to avoid, for a lack of better words, “advances” from Japanese soldiers. How she had to run away from her home because of the havoc the North Korean soldiers were wreaking on her village. 

She had to carry my uncle, who was just a baby at the time, for miles on end while my aunt tugged at her leg. She told my aunt to go walk with a neighbor who was walking ahead of them because she was tired of trying to carry two people at once, but my aunt refused to leave her side. A little while later, someone stepped on a landmine and the neighbor and everyone around her was killed. My aunt’s childish disposition saved her life. It’s so strange to think of what could’ve been considered a normal life for me. A life without someone that I hold very dear. A life that might not have even happened at all.