Therese Park

Americans love to use the word “love”, like salt they use in every food item. “I love to dance; I love this music; I love that restaurant; I love that color, I love you to death…"

“Jesus loves you whether you like it or not,” a preacher screeched on the radio as I drove to the neighborhood grocery store the other day. “That’s the truth, folks! Trust in the Lord!”

I changed the channel.

A singer hollered with a strum of a guitar. “Babe…I can’t help loving you.”

I killed the radio.

In front of the Sun Fresh Market, a woman in her forties was talking to a teenage boy, through her open car window. “Love you, honey!” she swooned. “I’ll pick you up at nine, okay? Don’t work too hard, hon.”

Love, love, love, love… Don’t they get tired of saying it?



While growing up in Korea, I never heard my parents pronouncing the word “sarang (love)” to us kids. Due to the Chinese Confucian influence in earlier centuries, most Korean parents never said anything to their children that would make them feel good about themselves or proud of their achievements, but demended obediance and elder respect. Though my parents never expressed their love toward us in words, we nevertheless felt loved and protected.

The first time I felt such love was when I was in the third grade. It was a bad day for me. A boy much bigger than me had knocked me down on the school playground for no reason, fracturing my right leg. Since there were no doctors or a clinic nearby, I was taken to a Bone Setter a few blocks away, but instead of making the pain go away, the old man made my condition worse by stretching the injured leg and administering acupressure. I blacked out, and my mother was called in. With her insistence, we waited for my father to come and take us to a hospital with his company car.

My father had had a few drinks with his business partners and was in a jovial mood when he showed up with his chauffer. In the car, my mother chewed on him while I moaned and cried. “How can you show up like this when our little one is in so much pain? You don’t even show any air of sympathy. What kind of father are you?”

He laughed. “Oh, I feel plenty for my little girl, trust me. I'll pray for her, if that'd make you feel better.” He recited aloud, “Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...”

“Stop that! You can at least ask her how she’s feeling. She waited for you more than six hours in that condition. But look at you!”

My tears rolled down freely on my face but I didn’t feel as much pain as I had earlier. My parents whom I had considered “heartless dictators” were arguing about me, their No.5 child. How many times had I thought I was merely one of the heads they had to count at the meal time? But that wasn’t true. I was their little one and they were worried about me.

I stayed home two months until my leg healed, during which time everyone treated me like a princess――bringing meals on a tray, buying me gifts, and asking, “How are you feeling?” The day I had to go back to school I cried until my eyes were puffy, but my mother kicked me out of the door mercilessly. “See you later!” was all she said.

All through my adolescent years, I dealt with my parents’ harsh words and rigid expressions, but I was privileged to know that their hearts were warm like the radiator in the dead of winter. Without their “no-nonsense” parenting, I wouldn’t have known the value of “tough love.”

Now that I am a mother and a grandmother of my American born daughters and grandchildren, I can positively say that “Love you, love you, love you” sound as meaningless as the endless drone of cicadas in a summer night.

December is here, and it will be Christmas before we know it. The Holiday season is when the value of “love” is calculated into dollar signs. But let us remember that the true expression of love has nothing to do with the amount of money we spend or the volume of the torn gift wrapping that will fill our trashcan when the good time is over.