7. Where Was Bandal’s Heart?
Love Belongs to the One Who Receives It
I often wonder. Did the things we did for Bandal, or the things we failed to do, feel like love to her as well? Or did she simply accept them in silence, having no other choice but to live that way? We never asked what kind of day Bandal truly wanted. We had no way to ask. In that quiet acquiescence, Bandal spent a lifetime of nineteen years with us. And I came to understand her quiet way of life far too late.
The day I finally finished reading Han Kang’s Human Acts, I felt an indescribable discomfort that left me unable to eat lunch or dinner. Corpses soaked endlessly in the never-ceasing fountain in the centre of the square, hopeless stains of blood atop cold flesh, gunshots and torture hidden under the name of the state, and the faces of those who had to erase even the memory of who they were. I closed the book, but the sentences remained within me, burning. The unrelenting images of the many forms of evil that humans can inflict on one another would not leave my mind, even days later. Yet at the same time, I recalled the hands that embraced one another amid ruin, the names that were called again and again in a desperate will to endure. On the day I faced both the cruelty and the enduring ember of humanity in Gwangju, I thought of Bandal. Bandal never once hurt us. She never sulked, never showed jealousy, not even when her respiratory condition made it difficult to breathe and she would cough frequently never did she express resentment. As she aged, she slept more, but still rose quietly when my parents woke her to feed her. I began to think that Bandal, perhaps animals as a whole, might be far more noble beings than humans. Humans, inevitably, end up hurting one another. Whether intended or not, the heart is always wounded by words and bruised by misunderstandings. But Bandal was different. In place of words, she gave silence; in place of demands, she waited; instead of desires, she gave us the gift of her quiet presence.
Did we ever truly understand the life that Bandal led? Perhaps Bandal never wanted to come to our home in the first place. Perhaps she wanted to stay with her mother. I recall the day I first met her. The eyes wide with the newness of everything, the way her small body shrank back from unfamiliar spaces and touches. The moment I held that tiny creature and said, “We’re a family now,” I meant it with all my heart. And yet, I now realise it may have been an utterly self-centred choice - human-centric, however well-intentioned. If only we had understood her earlier, maybe her final moments could have been a little less painful. As I watched her quietly leaving this world, I thought about the child who never once complained, who remained silent even as her body gave out. And I realised. Love is not the feeling of the one who gives, but of the one who receives. So I ask: was Bandal truly happy, just because we loved her?
All those questions and doubts found an unexpected answer in the chapel on the fifth floor of my hospital. Amid the book that records the names of patients who have passed and the ever-burning candle of prayer, I thought of Bandal. A hospital chaplain I met in the corridor said something to me: animals, unlike humans, are born without sin, and so they go to heaven without exception. At those words, tears poured down my face. I wanted to believe them. All the unanswered questions I had for Bandal, the loneliness, discomfort, and frustration she may have endured, everything felt forgiven in that single sentence. Since that day, I return to that chapel often. And I believe: unlike us, sinless Bandal is now happily playing beyond the rainbow bridge, reunited with her mother.
Bandal taught us so much before she left. How to speak through silence, how to exist with kindness, how just being can light up someone’s entire day. That is why even now, I quietly ask Bandal.
Bandal, where was your heart all that time?
And I hope that someday, her answer will reach me in a dream. And above all, I hope she tells me that our love was enough, and that her life, after all, was a good one.