hankyoreh

Aug 23.

He has gone far away, this man whose aching legs and swollen feet that made it difficult for him to walk even a few steps. He was accompanied on his way by mittens and chestnut-colored socks knitted by his wife for his hands and feet that had grown colder with every step. Where is he going without his cane, the one that helped him walk whenever democracy, human rights and peace between South Korea and North Korea lost their legs? Aug 23, a day of the year normally associated with the end of the summer heat, was particularly cheerless and carried a sorrowful energy.

The state funeral ceremony for former President Kim Dae-jung was held Sunday in front of the National Assembly building. The memorial address expressed a wish to hold onto him, “Are you really saying goodbye to us forever? The mountains and rivers of a divided South Korea and North Korea are choking with tears. Where do we turn now when something terrible happens in the country?”

As a form of response, countless citizens out in the streets called out his name once again. Some stretched out their hands towards his passing funeral portrait, crying and calling out, “President Kim Dae-jung, we love you” and “Don’t go.” Some mourners waved pieces of paper conveying issues that Kim Dae-jung had worried about and prayed for until his final breath, “democracy” and “South and North Korean reconciliation.”

After leaving the National Assembly after the memorial service, the motorcade stopped at his Donggyo-dong home, where the late president’s portrait was taken to his second floor study and to the room where he received painful dialysis treatments up until the end of his life and wished for an invention that could treat his kidneys. The portrait was also held tightly by his grandson to whom he often said, “Love for your neighbors is the core of life,” and carried to symbolically sniff the flowers that he and his wife had grown together in their front yard.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of citizens gathered at Seoul Plaza in front of Seoul City Hall. “We are happy to have lived in this age with him,” they said before joining together to sing, “Our hope is for unification.” The late president’s wife, Lee Hee-ho, stood before them and said in a frail but clear voice, “Forgiveness and reconciliation were the President’s dying wishes.” Thousands launched yellow balloons to express their longing for the departed leader, while others released butterflies that flew off after the balloons.

Kim Dae-jung, who faced countless crises in his life as an opposition party politician fighting a dictatorship, a president advancing democracy, and as a leader who worked to preserve peace and human rights, was laid to rest in Seoul National Cemetery in Seoul’s Dongjak-dong. Mourners reminisced about the fullness of his 86-year long life, the resilient honeysuckle that bears his nickname and his wish for the people to serve as “consciences that act.” The fifteenth president walked off into history with a letter from his wife close to his chest that says, “I love and respect you.”

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]