I eat to survive...

Eating is a must in my childhood home.  I know you all are thinking, “Well, duh,” but in a Korean home eating a lot is cause for praise and eating a little is cause for disappointment.  When surrounded by Korean adjumas (middle-aged women) at the table, you will hear the words “Mani mogoyo” (“Eat a lot”) on repeat even if none of them prepared the meal.  Their eyes are trained to detect how much or how little you have eaten.

So for my mommy (Yes, I still call her mommy cuz that’s how we Korean kids roll) this season is distressing in many ways, but watching me pick at my food and force myself to eat has added difficulty to her days.  She questions me, “Why you no eat?”  “Why you eat like bird?”  And my response is “Right now, I eat to survive not to enjoy.”  “I eat because I have to, not because I want to.”  When I am stressed, and having trouble remembering how to breathe somedays, food is the last thing on my mind.

I’ve taken a bit of joy out of her life because watching your baby eat a lot is a source of joy like no other especially if you made the meal.  (I did mention to my sister that being “encouraged” to eat a lot but not being allowed to get fat seems like an oxymoron, because if you get fat, the adjumas will let you know you are.)

Not every meal has been like this.  My sister and I escaped the hospice unit and found a piece of Heaven at a local restaurant a couple nights ago.  Original brick walls, tin ceilings and candlelight with the most mouthwatering homemade pasta, bread, and mocktails (instead of the wine that was supposed to come with the meal) The salad was even extraordinary.  I wanted to lick the bowl. It was delightful.  Every bite was memorable, and for the first time in a long time, I wanted to eat as much as I could and sit and savor every bite.  I won’t ever forget this meal because in the midst of weeks of forcing myself to eat to survive, I had a feast at a little table in a quaint restaurant in Richmond, Virginia that was a bit like lying down in green pastures beside quiet waters after traipsing through a battlefield.

Yet, that meal imprinted on my mind forever, would not have kept me alive without all the mundane, boring, meals I forced myself to consume.  I could have skipped that one memorable meal and it would not have affected my health, but I could not have skipped the weeks of ordinary, tasteless meals and survived.  They sustained me.

That same day, I had a one hour car ride to get to the other side of Richmond, which my sister calls “just down the road.”  I explained that “just down the road” for me means that, sans mobile transportation, you could walk it and still get there before lunch, but the unusually long car ride was another piece of Heaven in the midst of turmoil.  Jesus met me there, and masterfully put everything into perspective for me.

Compared to weeks of praying for survival, and simply crying out “Help, I can’t,” through rivers of tears, I feel as if I stepped into the throne room and was reminded that death is not the end and eternity is what matters.

I would not wish to have not experienced my heavenly car ride, but if I had to choose between weeks of mundane, ordinary, boring prayers or that memorable encounter, I would have to choose the mundane, ordinary, boring prayers—because they are what has kept me alive and sustained me.

Sometimes, “I pray to survive, not to enjoy,” and “I pray because I have to, not because I want to.” And those are the prayers I can’t live without.