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When my mom returned from the funeral, she was devastated. She let out this distinctly Korean wail and kept calling out, “Umma, Umma,” crumpled on the living room floor, her head heaving sobs into my father's lap as he sat on the couch and wept with her. […] I’d never seen my mother's emotion so unabashedly on display. Never seen her without control, like a child. I couldn't comprehend them the depth of her sorrow the way I do now. I was not yet on the other side, had not crossed over as she had into the realm of profound loss.

[…] I could only think of the last words my grandmother said to me before we returned home to America.

“You used to be such a little chickenshit,” she said. “You never let me wipe your asshole.”

Explanation and Analysis:

When Chongmi loses her own mother, whom Michelle calls Halmoni (the Korean word for grandmother), Chongmi’s grief is all-consuming, a loss of “control” unusual for such a self-contained woman. And importantly, in seeing her mother sob “like a c...

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Original

Romeo

(aside) She speaks.
O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white, upturnèd, wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art though Romeo?
Deny they father and refuse they name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Modern

Romeo

(to himself) She speaks. Speak again, bright angel! For tonight you are as glorious, there up above me, as a winged messenger of heaven who makes mortals fall onto their backs to gaze up with awestruck eyes as he strides across the lazy clouds and sails through the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Why must you be Romeo? Deny your father and give up your name. Or, if you won’t change your name, just swear your love to me and I’ll give up being a Capulet.

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