My grandfather collects furniture. He restores it. He knows everything about it, and loves the story of wood. One day, he sent me an envelope and asked me to fix his writing:
When valuing the quality of wooden furniture on the practical level, the flexibility and the hardness of the material are most important. The aesthetic quality, which becomes more important as the furniture becomes expensive, focuses on the beauty of the grain of the wood and the clean surface of the wood. A crack in the furniture is unexpected, but deadly and could ruin the furniture.
“Let’s go to the sauna, HanMin.”
My father interrupted me for our Sunday morning ritual. We would go to the local sauna. We would scrub each other’s backs, get refreshed, and return home after eating popsicles together.
“The water isn’t very hot this time, HanMin.”
As we have always done, my father first scrubbed my back and I turned to scrub his. Then I noticed the difference in the father who I remembered, and the man he actually was. He had lost more weight, his back had become stooped, and his fingers twisted from long hours of work.
My father had a crack.
“Dad, start exercising. You have to take care of yourself.”
“Okay I will, HanMin. Don’t worry.”
The cause of my father’s crack was me. At least I thought so. I was suffering from the competiveness and a busy life of boarding school. I wondered if I pushed my agony and sorrow onto people near me. I sometimes blamed my parents for my troubles. I spent my time vaguely, between work and play. I knew I was being selfish, but I thought my vanity lay in love. I also had crack in myself.
“HanMin, take a cab to go home. I have to go to work.”
After coming home, thinking more about my father, I felt the crack grow inside me. Who was I? My vanity seemed to go against the grain of those around me. I was too resistant of accepting myself for who I was truly being. Maybe not who I truly am. Who could I be if I was more realistic and honest with myself? How could I fix the crack in my father’s health? If I could fix my own, I could fix his.
When wooden furniture became cracked, our ancestors covered the furniture and stored it. From the cold, arid atmosphere of winter, the wood would dry and from the hot humid weather of summer, the wood would reform and reshape itself.
Admitting my naivety was harder than I thought. Though I could say that I was young, understanding and admitting my faults from the heart, it seemed unreal. My father was once young like me. He also had a father. Did they go to the sauna as well? I recalled all those times during the summer and winter breaks. We would go to the sauna every week and have long conversations. The topics sometimes offended me or him, but we both knew that those were necessary. The heat and humidity of the sauna tempered and raised me.
If the furniture survives its trials, then the wood finds its original figure, and the crack is left as a thread-like wound - a glorious mark of its growth. Then, though it has the same quality as other well-made furniture, it is considered as exceptional furniture.
My life had been a continuing sequence of avoiding and hiding from myself and the reality. I was afraid. However, after realizing who I am, how my father loves me, I have tried to change myself. I now know that there are friends, teachers, and my father behind me - who will always give help and support even when I face the ugliest and hardest truths. I now know that I have to carry myself, and though I should not follow the errors of my life, I have to keep them, be responsible for them, and love them.
The crack in me has been found, and is turning into a scar. My father has quit smoking and started exercising. My family seems tighter. I am becoming more self-aware.
Then, though it has the same quality as other well-made furniture, it is considered as exceptional furniture. The artistry is a wonderful accident, that gives the wood the quality of art.
My grandfather’s words are also my father’s words. I hear them in him. I hear them in myself. There is nothing I can change on paper to make them better. I can only learn to listen to them more.
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