Blue Bird

In the early 1990s, Korean Air first operated weekly flights to Sydney, Australia.

During that time, I had a lump in my left thyroid gland. I decided to have surgery because I was afraid that it might metastasize to thyroid cancer. At that time in Australia, I went to nursing school. When I had the surgery, I had no one to look after my little three-year-old son. So, my father came to pick up my son and I went to Sydney Airport by car to drop him off.

For about two weeks my son had a good time with his maternal grandfather. My son became very close with his grandfather and came to like him. We had lived in Newcastle, which was a 3 hour drive from Sydney. My son was so excited, and he never dreamed that he would go to Korea with his grandfather. As they boarded, my husband and I hid under the table so our son couldn't see us. My husband and I were hiding and watching our son at the same time. My son, who was being piggybacked by his grandfather, suddenly looked back. Struggling to get off his grandfather's back, my son eventually boarded a Korean Air flight with his grandfather.

At that time, Sydney International Airport was all glass windows. I could see clearly outside. The Korean Air airplane had the Taegeukgi painted in the sky blue. I watched my son's plane fly into the sky. The plane flew high and slowly disappeared. To my eyes, the Korean Air airplane looked like a blue bird. The blue bird was slowly disappearing from my eyes. The blue bird vanishing in the distance seemed to be becoming a single point. Then, all I could see was the blue sky.

The blue bird eventually disappeared, and tears flowed from my eyes.