March 29 2025

Dear Mina,

I tried to visit you in Seoul last week but I couldn’t. Your mom told me that everyone was unhappy with the turn of events and it was best that I just didn’t visit. I couldn’t do much. I left a message to your mom that I really missed you and I was unhappy to go back without seeing you. There was little I could do.

Your Korean grandma’s passing was a huge shock to me. I know that everyone around you must be blaming me - saying that I decided to unilaterally leave your mom, but she knows and I know that this is not a sudden decision, no matter how much she might want to believe it is. She might want to paint a picture that I decided to leave when she begged me not to but for the 5 or 6 years before that she took no effort to patch the relationship. I kept trying to express what made things challenging for me in Korea and she kept denying my requests, and I felt just unheard and useless.

My dream has always been to put you in school, a good school where you have freedom to think and meet a lot of different people. Not years of homeschooling where it’s just you and your mom and you live in the bubble that your mom creates. She has many fears and I hope that you are not influenced by her. The world is a wonderful place and there are a lot of things to be seen and learned. There are many kinds of people living many kinds of lives. I hope you get to live in many countries and experience their cultures some day, like I have done.

To my absolute shame I was totally ineffective in changing things while we were married and living in the same house. I kept having loose boundaries, kept thinking “things will change if only xyz happened” but it never did. I just felt more and more marginalized. I must learn to have stronger boundaries - something your mom is very good at - and I wouldn’t mind you learning how to have strong boundaries from her. But please, just don’t believe that the world is a scary place to live in.

Anyway, you’re too young to understand all this right now. I don’t even know whether, when I do go to Seoul, you’ll want to meet me, given what has happened.

I don’t want to sound negative all the time. I don’t want to blame your mom for what happened. We need to move forward in life, all of us, and I know this is hard for you right now and I worry that you may not be getting the right support at this time.

I just want you to know that I love you and think of you every day. I still can’t see your pictures because it’s too hard. I hope some day you’ll want to talk to me and call me.

Love,

Appa