Roo'ra's Kim Ji-hyun Wore Glasses at a New York Airport to Hide Tears as She Carried Her Mother's Ashes Home

Walking through security at a New York airport, Kim Ji-hyun put on glasses to hide her crying. She was carrying the ashes of her mother, whom she had not seen for 20 years. "Isn't my mother leaving New York after 20 years as ashes? What I felt then wasn't my own tears; it felt like my mother's," she said.

Kim, a former member of the group Roo'ra, spoke about the family history on the YouTube channel Neoui Han, in an episode released on the 16th. She appeared with fellow Roo'ra member Lee Sang-min, who raised the subject of her mother's funeral, and Kim began to recall memories of her own mother with care. Because she had kept the story buried for so long, the account was full of mixed emotions. After telling it, she said she felt lighter. "With the host and Lee Sang-min there, I think I ended up telling a story that had never been known on air," she said.

A rift over the sale of her father's land

According to Kim, when the family fell into financial difficulty, her mother sold land owned by her father and left for the United States, saying she wanted to start something new with an aunt who lived there. Her mother later formed another relationship, and Kim felt deep sympathy for her father, who was left on his own. "I felt so sorry for Dad," she said. The feeling did not stop at disappointment: thinking of the loss and pain her father must have gone through, she found it hard to forgive her mother. The wounds of childhood were too deep to fully understand her parents' choices, and it seems it was not easy for her to sort out her feelings between affection for her mother and pity for her father.

Even so, Kim did not deny her mother's love. "Mom did everything. She did her duty as a parent. She backed me in everything I wanted," she said. Yet when she thought of her father, she could not be the first to reach out. Love and resentment toward the same person led to a long estrangement, and the two went more than 10 years without any contact. Kim also had no way to check on her mother's news herself.

"I didn't see my mother even once in 20 years," Kim said. "I wondered if she was too ashamed to see my face." Resentment remained in a corner of her heart over the years. "I felt a bit resentful that she left without ever seeing my face," she said. The loss of any chance to sit face to face and ask, or to hear an answer, remained a pain that did not fade after the parting.

News of her death on landing

Kim recalled the moment she was heading to the United States before her mother's death became known to her. "On the plane I had a dream, and I saw a single white flower," she said, adding that in the dream she went around trying to buy the flower. But when she arrived in the United States and turned on her phone, unexpected news was waiting. "As soon as I got off the plane and turned on my phone, my husband was crying and said, 'Your mother has died,'" she recalled. The tie with the mother she had not seen for 20 years ended abruptly.

The funeral could not be held in the ordinary way either. Because her mother had been staying in the United States, Kim had to finish the rites there by preparing the body and cremating it. "Because Mom was in the United States, we couldn't hold a proper three-day funeral. We only did the preparation of the body and cremation," she explained. On the way back to South Korea, personally carrying the ashes, the emotions she had held back came out all at once.

It is not known whether her resentment toward her mother has fully disappeared. Twenty years was too long, both to resolve the conflict between mother and daughter and to say a last goodbye, and Kim's account carried longing and belated regret for someone she never got to meet again.

Read the original (Korean)