Once we were ready, we filed out, tewaks and nets slung over our shoulders, our sea-farming tools strung in satchels from our waists, our spears in hand. One by one, we dropped into the sea. The baby-divers and elders, including Grandmother, swam together to the right. The small-divers, actual grandmother-divers, and I looped our arms over our tewaks and began paddling away from the shore, following my mother to our designated spot. The sun spilled gloriously on our faces, arms, and shoulders. The water was cerulean blue. The swells were gentle, giving us nothing to fight against. I wished Mi-ja could see me.
“Here we are,” Mother yelled loud enough for her voice to reach the others over the wind and waves. She spat on her bitchang to bring good luck. I did the same. Then together we dove down. The water wasn’t too deep, and we wove in and out between large rocks, with Mother pointing out sea urchins and other creatures we could come back for later. First, though, an abalone for me. How fortunate I was to have my mother teach me this skill.
Back up for breath, then down again. I had years to go before I’d have my mother’s lung capacity, but she didn’t complain. She was patient. Back up for breath, then down again. She spotted a boulder dotted with abalone. They could camouflage themselves so well, no wonder I hadn’t seen them before. Now that I had, I would always know what to look for—a grayish blue or black bump, not all that smooth, rising from the cragged contour of an algae-covered boulder. Back up for a breath.
“Remember everything you’ve been taught,” Mother advised. “I’ll be right by your side, so don’t be frightened.”
We each took several deep breaths, then down again. We approached slowly so as not to disturb the waters. As fast as a snake striking its prey, I thrust my bitchang under the lifted edge of the abalone and flipped it off its home before it had a chance to clamp down. I grabbed it as it started to fall to the seabed. Seeing I was successful and having more air than I did, Mother thrust her bitchang under another abalone just as I started to kick for the surface. I broke into the air with my prize raised above my head. My sumbisori sounded triumphant. The haenyeo, who were resting on their tewaks, cheered for me.
“Congratulations!”
“May this be the first of many!”
Following tradition, I slowly rubbed the abalone on my cheek to show my affection and gratitude and then carefully placed it in my net. I was ready to dive down again, eager to harvest another abalone, when I realized my mother still hadn’t come up for air. She could hold her breath a long time, but she should have surfaced by now. A breath, a breath, a breath, and then under . . .
As soon as I set myself in the head-down position, I could see Mother still at the boulder, exactly where I’d left her. She was struggling to reach for something in the sand below her. Filtered sunlight caught the edge of her knife lying just out of reach. I gave two more strong kicks and glided next to her. That’s when I saw that her bitchang was trapped under the abalone. She had needed her knife to cut off the leather strap. Never panic was the greatest safeguard under the sea, but I was terrified. I concentrated hard as I pulled my knife from my belt, afraid I might drop mine as Mother must have dropped hers. By now, though, my lungs were already pressing hard against my chest. Mother had been underwater far longer. She had to be in agony. I pulled myself closer and tried to slip my knife under the leather loop, but it had tightened in the water as it was meant to do. My heart pounded. Blood throbbed in my head. I needed air, but Mother needed it more. I didn’t have time to go to the surface for help. If I did, by the time I got back . . .
Now we were both desperate. She grabbed my knife and tried to slice through the leather. In her rush, she slit a deep gash in her forearm. The blood turned the water murky, making it even harder to see where she was cutting. Her legs began to kick frantically, trying through sheer strength to free herself from the abalone’s grip on the bitchang. I pulled on her arm, trying to help. I couldn’t last much longer . . .
Suddenly, Mother stopped struggling. She calmly set the knife on the boulder and placed her now free hand over my wrist, getting my attention. Her pupils were dilated—from the darkness, from terror. She stared deeply into my eyes for a second or two, taking me in, remembering me. Then she released her breath. Her life bubbles burbled up between us. Another second passed. She still held my wrist, but I placed my other hand on her cheek. A lifetime of love passed between us, and then my mother sucked in water. Her body jerked and flailed. I badly needed air, but I didn’t leave her side until she was gone, floating peacefully, still attached to the rock.
* * *
Since my mother’s body was easily retrieved and brought to shore, she would not become a hungry ghost. This was the only comfort I could offer to my grandmother, father, and siblings when I told them that Mother would never again breathe and her body would never again be warm. When pressed, I told them about her final moments. We all wept, but Father didn’t reproach me. Or, if he did, it was nothing compared to how I cursed myself. The suspicion that I was the cause of her death ate at me like lye. I was filled with misery and guilt.
Mi-ja came to my house the next morning. She had deep circles under her eyes, and her cheeks were hollowed from a day and night of stomach ailments. She listened as I explained what had happened through gasping sobs. “Maybe I startled the abalone with my kicking to the surface. I was so excited and proud of myself, but maybe I stirred the waters too much and the abalone clamped down on Mother’s bitchang—”
“Don’t blame yourself for things that maybe happened,” she said.
Even if she was right about that, I saw no way to remove my guilt.
“Why didn’t I retrieve her knife and just give it to her? If I’d done that, she could have worked on the strap herself. And worse,” I cried, “I didn’t know how to handle my knife effectively.”
“No one expects a baby-diver to have such presence of mind. That’s why we train.”
“But I should have saved her . . .”
Mi-ja had lost her mother and father, so she felt my pain in a way no one else could. She refused to leave my side. She held my hand when my father announced the official beginning of our family’s mourning by taking the last tunic my mother had worn to the roof, waving it above his head, and shouting three times into the wind, “My wife, Kim Sun-sil, of the Gul-dong section of Hado Village, has died at age thirty-eight. I inform you of her return to the place she came from.”
Mi-ja stayed at our house, woke up early, and helped me haul water and gather fuel for the fire. She assisted me when I washed my mother’s body, placed buckwheat kernels in her palms and on her chest to feed the spirit dogs she would encounter on her journey to the Afterworld, and then wrapped her in cloth. This act is a daughter’s greatest honor and her greatest desolation. Mi-ja dressed my younger brothers and sister in mourning white. She helped me cook sea urchin soup and other required dishes for the funeral.
Mi-ja walked by my side during the procession through Hado. She bounced Fourth Brother on her hip to keep him from crying. I carried my mother’s spirit tablet and took care never to look over my shoulder for fear she might return to this world again. The women from the bulteok followed behind us, helping us clear the road for the passage of the dead to her grave. Behind them, twelve men carried my mother’s casket. Many people lined the olles. Everyone wanted to be a part of my mother’s journey to the Afterworld.