Blog Post 1: Star Rubies

Star Rubies

My grandmother is from South Korea. She married my grandfather when she was only 15 years old in an arranged marriage. They were married 63 years until my grandfather passed away last year.

She was more than just my grandmother, she was like a second mother to me. My mother worked a lot so it was my grandmother who took care of me. She does not speak English. She is the reason I speak Korean.

My grandmother has a small tattoo on the top of her hand about the size of a pea. It looks like an inkblot between her thumb and fore finger. I asked her what it was and she told me that her and a group of friends did it to themselves. When she was a girl, Japan invaded and occupied Korea. They took all the children to re educate (brainwash) them and gave them Japanese names. My grandmother made this mark on her hand so she would not forget who she really was.

Then there was the Korean war that she lived through as a teenager. She lost many family members. Her mother married her off to my grandfather after the armistice.

In the olden days when a Korean woman got married, her family traditionally gave her jewelry. It was a form of dowry. Koreans did not always use standard currency and relied on trading. Jewelry was the most valuable thing to trade. You could tell how wealthy a woman was by looking at the amount of jewelry she was wearing on her wedding day.

My grandmother was married with two pieces of jewelry. A gold ring with two star rubies and a gold necklace with one star ruby. It is safe to say she was not rich. She wore those two pieces of jewelry everyday. You would never see her without them on. They are her most valued possessions.

Last year my grandmother became ill with mouth cancer. She never smoked a day in her life. They had to cut out part of her tongue and now she can’t speak. I am the only grandchild that speaks Korean. I felt the connection we had was now severed.

We made her notes cards when she was in the hospital so she could communicate with the nurses. One side had Korean and the other side was in English. She still uses note cards to communicate to this day. She can’t write well because of her shaky hands so her communication is very limited.  

She has lost a lot of weight since her surgery and her ring will no longer stay on her finger. She gave her ring to me. I was surprised that it didn’t go to one of her 5 children. Why me?

I was talking to my uncle one day about grandmother and I told him about her hand tattoo. He didn't even know she had a tattoo. No body in the family did. They had to see it for themselves. I was the one who had to tell them the story.

When I look at this ring I think of her life. When I have a bad day I can look at this ring and realize it is not as bad as it could be. I look at this ring and see my family’s history. This ring was given to me so I could tell the story that goes with it.