By Kim Heung-sook
November is a season of parting. Leaves fall from trees and go back to the earth. Some depart from this world prematurely and others, belatedly. Even the most unexpected of farewells can be not very surprising in this month of sunsets. For all this understanding, your departure is hard to acknowledge. Why? Why did you have to go in such a hurry?
The moment I saw your photo at the bottom of a newspaper, Tuesday, I was overwhelmed with a rush of odd uneasiness. Why here? I tried to fight the ominous feeling, thinking you must have done something impressive as you used to. But then, it was an obituary, too short to record your eventful life of 71 years towards perfection. I panicked helplessly. ``But he WAS an old man,'' a friend murmured only to add to my sorrow. He didn't know you never got old regardless of your age.
The long travel on a bus and two subway trains didn't help me, either. Everywhere were people chattering or chiding, smiling or scowling. Everything looked the same as before. The sky was blue, the air chilly. I was in my wintry armor of a long black coat. There was no hint that something as unbelievable as your death had occurred.
So, when I arrived at the entrance of Kyung Hee University and saw the black and white banner informing the place for mourners, I had yet to give up my hope that everything about your death was a joke. However, as I approached the Neo Renaissance Building, where your office as the president of Kyung Hee Cyber University (KHCU) had been, I realized that you were gone truly.
In the hall adorned with hundreds of chrysanthemums, students and faculty of your school greeted me and other guests with just the right dose of formality and informality, which I had noticed in you and your secretary when we first met in mid-1980s. You were the director-general for American Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and I was one of the reporters covering the ministry. Some say that such a decent mixture of professionalism and geniality should be natural for a seasoned diplomat with nearly 40 years of experience. However, such a trace is a rarity even among career diplomats.
With the military general-turned-President Chun Doo-hwan running the nation, the entire ministry, including your office and the pressroom, was ceaselessly haunted by intelligence and police officers observing or making unreasonable demands and threats. Being in charge of Korea-U.S. affairs, among others, you were constantly pestered by Chun's cadets. I saw you almost everyday, marveling at how you kept your sanity and temper. Only once did I see you raising your voice into the phone, but that lasted for a few minutes, if not seconds.
After serving as ambassador to Colombia, Canada and the United States, and as the vice foreign minister and chief delegate to the Four-Party Talks involving the U.S., China, and South and North Koreas, you left foreign service and became an educator with an honorary doctorate in political science. You were as successful as the dean of the Graduate School of NGO Studies and the dean of the Graduate School of Pan-Pacific International Studies at Kyung Hee University, and became the President of KHCU in 2003. No wonder, KHCU grew to be one of the best and most globalized on-line institutions of higher learning in Korea under your leadership.
We seldom saw each other since I left the Foreign Ministry. I read about you in the papers and you may have heard about me through the grapevine. So, it was pretty amazing when you called me early last year upon reading my essay about Ki Hyung-do, a journalist-poet who died at the age of 29. You said you liked the piece very much and said we should meet and talk about Ki.
Old people say they envy you for the way you left, that you just fell in your office and passed away, that you didn't have to show the withering process. I am not so cruel as to say the truth in their face, but I tell them inwardly that death is only a reflection of life and that you die as you live.
For all the autumnal colors, life looks shabbier this morning. I open Ki's book and there he says: ``Death is but life without mask/the same as us and our winter.'' Please say hello to him for me. Talk about me until my ears ache: You never spoke ill of people. Rest well, for you need to. I miss you already and I know I'm not the only one to do so.
kimsook.hotmail.com