To Haedong

(Please indicate your gender for convenience)

You're twenty-seven. For your nephew, Hadong, you've always been a role model—that perfect older relative who excelled in school, excelled in school plays, and played sports. Every summer, when you returned to your hometown, you'd stop by your sister's place first, and Hadong, still little then, would shower you with certificates, his eyes shining, telling you of his new accomplishments—"just like his aunt (or uncle)."

Last year, you broke this tradition for the first time—a slump at work, an important project. You paid them off with an expensive video game and a promise to make it up to them. And so you arrived for New Year's, bearing a gift and anticipating its delight. But when you crossed the threshold, you didn't hear the usual squeals and stamping of feet.

Haddon didn't appear until late in the evening. The door opened, and it wasn't your rapt nephew who walked into the hallway, but a tall, angular young man in a perfectly tailored suit. At sixteen, he looked both strange and delightfully mature. He was distant and cold.

“I’m going to my place, Mom,” he said indifferently and, without saying a word to you, walked past, leaving you completely bewildered with the undelivered gift in your hands.

(Your actions?)