Today was a good day for Halmoni and me. Seems like the older I get, the more we're getting along. Weird, but good. Weird because we're as different as my father and she were. Good because as she's aging, we need to mend fences quickly and i guess because we're both getting lonely for family.

Halmoni left her mother at bayonet gun point when the Korean War broke out in Kesong, Halmoni's native village. She was only 13 when a North Korean soldier stormed into her room and screamed at her to leave the family compound. She never saw her mother or most of her brothers again. Halmoni recalls joining the mass exodus of her village as it flowed south over unpaved roads, deserted buildings, and an overburdened bridge teeming with refugees, some of whom fell into the frozen river below. She remembers a particularly vivid scene involving a cow struggling to free itself from the river's broken surface of ice. She can still feel the confusion of the moment, she still hears the cacophony of men, women, and children desperately searching for escape from the impending terror of the communist North.

I picture Halmoni as a little girl frantically looking for her family all by herself.

At 13, I experienced my own separation from the family, so Halmoni and I seemed to have more in common than we expected. If it weren't for the boys and Pookers, I don't think I would have ever had the opportunity to understand this.