Facetime

Healthy connections: a surprisingly hard thing to come by in today’s world full of immigrants.

Brring! Brrring!

My phone buzzes on the surface of my dining room table; it’s a call from my grandparents, on the other side of the world. As I click “Accept,” I see their faces pop up on the bright LED screen. 

“Eomeo! You’ve grown so tall!” they cried in Korean, happy to see me after being apart for so long.

I look on, thinking about how they haven’t forgotten an inch of me, even after all these years.

Is school okay? How are your friends? What extracurriculars are you doing? I answer every question, nostalgic tears brimming in my eyes. 

I hadn’t visited in almost four years. They kept urging me to come see them. But I always had other things. Other activities. 

I remember everything. Making traditional sweets with my grandparents, going to their field full of green, leafy crops, and browsing the traditional Korean fish markets, where the air was thick with the smell of the sea that now separates us.

But even though my grandparents are across the globe, on a different continent entirely, they still want to know everything I do. And even though the age gap, the physical distance, and the language barrier between us feels impassable, the figurative, mental, emotional gap between us? It doesn’t exist at all. 

When they finally run out of questions, I ask one of my own: “How is the kimjang going?” and they reply ecstatically, their turn to be surprised that I remembered them too.

“It’s going so well! I hope it’s ready by the time you come to visit!” 

As I say farewell to my grandparents and cut the call, I go to my mother’s room. 

No matter the gap, no matter the barrier, it’s possible to connect. Long-distance relationships can be hard. As many immigrate to other countries, their bonds with their loved ones that stay behind fall apart slowly. But that does not mean we should let it happen. 

And as I leave, I remember the bright pirorirorin! of Kakaotalk’s meet service.