[The Editors' Verdict] In Family Month, How to Avoid Life's Regrets

Even climbing low stairs becomes difficult with age. The double life comes like fate. Being someone's child and also a parent to someone else. The connection of family begets yet another connection.

Watching a child become a parent carries its price. Shoulders become hunched and skin loses its elasticity before you know it. The reflection in the mirror reveals the weariness of time etched on one’s face.

Life is a process of continuation and severance. Enduring and overcoming pain and suffering, accumulating experience may be the destiny of humans. If someone you considered a lifelong companion has already passed away, the life of the one left behind feels even lonelier. No human power can turn back the relentless passage of time. The brilliant youth remains only as a faint memory, and though you try to endure by recalling those memories, both body and mind grow weary, making life burdensome.

On Parents' Day, May 8, 2023, carnations are displayed at Yangjae Flower Complex in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jin-Hyung Kang aymsdream@

"With those delicate and white hands tying my necktie, I vaguely remember, dear, do you recall those times?" The reason why singer Lim Young-woong’s song ‘A Story of a 60s Elderly Couple’ touches the heart is probably because of this. When you grow older and realize why you seek out songs from the past, your life journey is heading toward twilight.

How many years have passed with the lesson of loneliness deeply engraved in the heart of human life? The driving force to overcome life’s hardships is ultimately people, especially family. In that sense, May is special.

From Children’s Day, Parents’ Day, Coming-of-Age Day, to Couples’ Day, several commemorative days remind us of the meaning of family. Children’s Day, Couples’ Day, and Coming-of-Age Day carry stronger meanings of blessing. On the other hand, Parents’ Day is different from other commemorative days. When you think of that word, there is something that makes your chest tighten.

Often, you realize the day has come when you find yourself looking at carnations and potted plants you usually pay no attention to. Many times, you feel you have fulfilled your duty as a child through such actions, but you cannot hide the emptiness in a corner of your heart. Because you cannot guarantee how long the peace of the family will last.

Time does not flow equally. Feelings toward time differ depending on age. Isn’t it human affairs that you cannot be sure if the parents who always seemed to have open arms will still be by your side a year from now? Are we not forgetting that ordinary truth everyone knows and letting precious time slip away helplessly?

What should we do to reduce the regrets of life even a little? It does not require grand actions. If you live far away, how about calling your parents?

The time to feel and convey the voice of joy. If the energy of the voice stimulates something that has been quietly hidden inside your heart, how about visiting your parents on the weekend? Just facing each other can change the atmosphere of life. Simply sharing a warm meal at the same table might allow your parents to experience a revival of life.

The more parents have endured the hardships of youth and life, the more they have sacrificed themselves for their children, the more dramatic the effect becomes. That heart-touching energy transfers to the children. Living together, breathing in the same space itself is sharing the happiness of life.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.