The Silver Lining

My work place is about 30 mins away, give or take 10 minutes when I'm taking public transportation. Six stops on the busy green line and a 5 stop ride on the local neighborhood bus. I live about 400 meters from the train station and honestly have no reason to be late.

However, there are days when I wait till the absolute last minute to leave my apartment. Once it was because I was messaging with a friend in the States for so long that I lost track of time. Another was because I had something due that morning and woke up later than I expected to get the work done. Another was because the short story I was writing was picking up momentum so I wrote till the sun came up.

Regardless of the reason, on those days, I take a taxi to work. Comparatively, it's a cheap ride. If I rode 25 minutes in a NYC cab, it would amount to anything from 20 dollars to 30 dollars depending on where I was going and how bad traffic was. In Seoul, it's less than 10 USD. The first couple of times I rode a cab here, I reveled in how cheap it was, how Korean cabs were so clean compared to American ones. But it's a luxury. Public transportation is less than a dollar one way with a free transfer if you take a combination of train and bus. If I'm good, it takes me less than two dollars to get to work and back home everyday.

Last week, I took a cab to work because I was starting to develop a cold. My tonsils were on fire and I had a massive headache. I'd taken medicine but I knew it was going to be a bad day. I was lethargic, cranky, and ready to use anything as an excuse to not move.

Thankfully, the cab driver that day was a really nice man. He was dressed to the nines and answered me when I greeted him as I got in. He told me he had a wedding to go to in Gangnam after he dropped me off, so he was glad he could take me where I needed to go and it was in the same direction. Fall weather was finally here, so it was beautiful outside.

When people talk to me about things I don't know in Korea, my usual answer is, "Oh, I'm sorry. I've lived in the States for over twenty years. I don't really know what you're talking about." It's the perfect excuse. It's vague enough, it's polite enough, and 9/10 times, the person talking to me usually shuts up and leaves me alone. It's an excuse I overuse on a lot of people.

I used this excuse on the cab driver that day and got an answer I didn't expect. Oh, he'd been to the United States before, just once. I replied with an oh and he continued. He'd gone to identify and bury the body of his daughter who had been killed in a car accident. She had gone to Maryland to study medicine at Johns Hopkins. She had been a third year resident, and she had invited her parents to come live with her after she had finished her residency.

The unexpected tears building up behind my eyes made my swollen tonsils ache more. I told him I was sorry that his only trip to the United States was marred by such sadness. He had nice things to say about the funeral system in the United States. How the insurance people had been so kind. How the airline people and the people at the embassy had been so attentive, so quick to help him.

The way he spoke. The way he logically explained and systematically found the silver lining reminded me so keenly of my father that homesickness rendered me silent for the rest of the car ride. This intensely Korean way of counting blessings while half your heart dies was almost sadder than the tragedy itself.

There's not really any lesson to be learned from a conversation like this except to reinforce the cliché that life is fleeting and to live every day to the fullest. But that's not the point of this story. The point of this story is my subtle change in attitude. It's subtle, too subtle to be noticed by anybody but myself, but I too must systematically find my silver lining.

Logically, systematically, and as unbiased as possible, my point of view on gratitude changes.