Breathless

It's strange how quiet the house is now.

You don't realize how much noise a baby brings - soft coos, midnight whimpers, the rhythmic breath of sleep - until it's all gone. I used to be someone's 엄마. His name was Min-jun.

I still remember the last morning. It was Spring. The cherry blossoms had started blooming outside our apartment window, scattering pink petals like snow across the balcony. Min-jun was in his crib, wearing the little bear onesie Halmoni sent from Seoul. I had just made myself a cup of barley tea and hummed an old lullaby I barely remembered from my childhood.

He looked peaceful. Too peaceful.

At first, I thought he was sleeping longer than usual. "What a good boy," I whispered, not wanting to jinx it.

But the silence was too deep.

There was no rise and fall of his chest. No warmth when I picked him up.

I screamed his name. Again and again.

The doctors said it was SIDS (Studden Infant Death Syndrome). No warning. No explanation. Just three cold letters that now haunt every inch of this home.

My husband doesn't talk about it much. He cries in the shower, quietly.

As if grief can be hidden, as if it's something shameful.

I grieve out loud.

Sometimes I scream into his crib pillow until my voice breaks.

I sing lullabies to the air, to the absence, to the ghost that sometimes feels more real than a memory.

My mother tells me to pray.

My friends tell me to try again.

The world tells me to move on.

But I don't want to move on. I want to remember.

Some mornings, I light a candle and lay one of his tiny socks beside it. I tell him stories, like I would have if he had grown older. I tell him about his favorite rattle, how he always smiled crooked like his father.

My light dimmed when he left.

I am still his 엄마, even if the world no longer sees me that way.

And in this quiet, I hold onto that truth.