On Our Perpetual Rebirth

Thoughts on Grief and "Crying in H Mart"

Cherry blossoms in Tokyo, Japan. Photo by Alexander J.E. Bradley. Similar ones can be found across the Pacific Northwest in spring.

I just recently got around to reading the coveted memoir Crying in H Mart (2021) by author and musician Michelle Zauner. The book centers on Zauner’s tumultuous relationship with her mother, the journey she undergoes caring for her through cancer, and grieving after her eventual passing. Formatted in a series of semi-chronological vignettes, the memoir opens with the chapter “Crying in H Mart,” a portrait of a present day Zauner shopping for ingredients for Korean dishes in H Mart, tearing up because she doesn’t have her mother to call on for shopping guidance. Zauner, of Korean and Jewish American heritage, describes the experience of losing her mother as all-encompassing, not only because of the immediate physical loss but because of the feeling of her ties to Korean culture being severed. The resulting story highlights the ups and downs in Zauner’s relationship with her mother and career, not shying away from illustrating the intense pain and confusion that grief imparts.

At twenty-two years old, I am fortunate to have not gotten too familiar with grief yet. I say “yet” because grief is, unfortunately, an emotional experience that all humans are bound to encounter at some point. It’s a fact that has become even clearer to me after reading Crying in H Mart. Before Zauner knew it, she was in for a life transformation of epic proportion, losing her grounding in reality as she braced herself for the unthinkable. The saying goes that “the only thing constant in life is change,” but even the “change” itself is capable of transforming in ways we can’t foresee. We don’t always get to decide when and how life is going to uproot us from our safe spaces and shake us until all of our leaves fall off. How chilling - the idea that a thundercloud could be looming overhead at any moment, waiting for a moment to strike lightning.

Change comes in all forms imaginable. Relationships and careers are built and then fall apart. People’s bodies, homes, and friends are altered time and time again. We don’t often think about how the effects of even more mundane forms of change and loss can accumulate and fester. Because change is inevitable, grief has an imminent quality as well.

How does one cope with this, with the fact that we can’t curb the storms that are bound to wreak havoc? How have people coped with it throughout history? Is there any benefit in trying?

We all can’t help but anticipate things in life to be linear, when in reality, very little is. This is something that I learned in Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristen Neff, Ph.D, a book on the radical nature of mindfulness and loving kindness. Neff writes that there’s never a guarantee that things work out for us exactly how we expect, and yet, we feel all kinds of disappointment and despair when they don’t. Why should we expect things in life to always go as planned when evidence shows that they rarely turn out perfectly?

Neff stresses that we needn’t wallow in despair about this fact, nor strive to rid ourselves of our feelings of pain when life unloads hardship onto us. Pain is incredibly important. It shows us what we care about, it’s a part of what makes us human. To not feel pain is to be detached from humanity. Sure, we can lock ourselves away from the world - away from the potential to hurt others or for others to hurt us - but even the act of shutting out life is a grieving process. Rather, Neff stresses that painful moments are as much a part of life as the good stuff. Learning how to view life as a mosaic of both pleasure and pain is what can help us get through the challenging moments and learn to witness life in a more holistic manner.

This is something that Zauner nods to in her memoir. Prior to her mother’s passing, their relationship was far from perfect. Zauner writes about her mother’s incessant criticism towards her, how belittling she could be about anything from her appearance choices to her weighty ambitions. Zauner illustrates a childhood and early adulthood replete with moments of connection and disconnection with her mother - a process of building and destroying and building and destroying as the two loved and reconciled differences again and again. A see-saw constantly teetering between moments of pleasure and moments of pain. 

In When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, writer and ordained nun Pema Chödron writes about this process being all there really is in life. Humans are in a perpetual state of gaining their footing - in jobs, friendships, relationships - and then toppling over again. Choosing to carry on despite the promise of being knocked down again is what makes life life. She writes: 

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.”

Loss is an essential part of life, and as a result, so too is resilience. This has become particularly apparent to me with the impending spring season. In the Pacific Northwest, where I (and Michelle Zauner) grew up, mangled black branches are suddenly adorned with delicate pink flowers and cherries, lightening the skies and filling them with a gentle aroma. Without nature withering, retreating, and going dormant to brave the cold, would it be able to blossom as dramatically as it does in April each year?

One of the most poignant parts of Crying in H Mart for me came in the book’s final chapter, “Coffee Hanjan.” Several years after her mother’s passing, Zauner begins to find success as a musician, booking out a tour with her band Japanese Breakfast across east Asia. One of the last stops on Zauner’s tour is Seoul, South Korea: her birthplace and her mother’s native country. After her band’s set, Zauner recalls seeing dozens of kids leaving the concert venue with sleeves of vinyl with her mom’s face on the cover. Psychopomp, the album that helped Japanese Breakfast gain traction, was created largely in the aftermath of Zauner’s mom’s passing. Many of the songs, like “In Heaven,” reflect Zauner’s grief and a photograph of her young mother reaching for the camera dons the album’s cover.

In the chapter, Zauner reflects on the fact that this album and its subsequent triumphs were indirect consequences of the tragedy that she experienced just a few years prior. Despite this, she, of course, can’t help but wish that her mother was there to celebrate her successes with her. She writes: 

“I wished that my mother could see me, could be proud of the woman I’d become and the career I’d built, the realization of something she worried for so long would never happen. Conscious that the success we experienced revolved around her death, that the songs I sang memorialized her, I wished more than anything and through all contradiction that she could be there.”

It takes courage to be able to see beauty on the other side of tragedy. To not resent a life that has taken what’s most important from you, to choose to keep going after being thrown out of the nest. As Crying in H-Mart profoundly displays, undergoing the process of grief and coming out on the other side with joy is an experience wrought with pain. Zauner even acknowledging the contradiction in her musical success - that it may not have been possible if not for the emotional state her mother’s death put her in - is undoubtedly agonizing. 

Zauner’s story teaches readers that pain is impossible to run from. Grief is inevitable. And through it all, humans continue to choose to live everyday. People will experience the hardest personal tragedies imaginable and still be able to see the beauty in life and add to it as a result of their experiences. The only way that one can cope with inescapable tragedy is that simple fact, as it’s one that imparts hope. 

“To live is to be willing to die over and over again.” And then be reborn again and again.

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For more reflections on Self-Compassion by Kristen Neff, check out my article “The Art of Savoring.”