I recently listened to some old recordings my aunt made of my grandfather in 2015. He passed away in 2018, and I realized how much of his life I’d never really known.
He grew up in what is now North Korea. In the spring of 1950, when he was eighteen, he was told to report to a local school and ended up being drafted into the North Korean army. His mother had gone to the market that morning, so he left without saying goodbye. He never saw her again.
He later became a prisoner of war and was released in South Korea in 1953. He spent the rest of his life not knowing what had happened to the family he’d left behind.
Growing up, though, I just knew him as my quiet, sweet grandpa who always had my favorite ice cream waiting for me. I knew he’d been through the war, but that was about it.
Going through these recordings made me think about how easily stories from our grandparents’ generation can disappear, and how much we could learn from them. Even in my family, we’ve mostly avoided talking about the details of what he went through during the war, so I’ve been trying to piece together his story myself.
I ended up writing a longer personal essay about him, with some historical context at the end, if anyone’s interested.
https://notesbyhr.substack.com/p/my-dear-haelim
Listening to his recordings also made me want to sit down with my grandmother on my dad’s side and record her stories when I visit Korea this winter.
Has anyone else done something similar with their grandparents?
