The article reflects on the emotional complexities of exhuming the remains of family members in South Korea. It narrates a family’s experience as they prepare to cremate the graves of their ancestors, highlighting the cultural traditions and expectations tied to these events. The author portrays the juxtaposition of reverence and discomfort experienced during the exhumation process, underscoring the generational shifts in attitudes toward ancestral rituals. The narrative reveals personal and familial tensions while depicting the somber reality of confronting mortality in a tangible way.
My mom cried, but didn't sob. I never imagined doing something like this, she said. The process was at once invasive and abstract.
The workers spoke of the dead in a formal, reverential way, as though my grandmother had passed the day before, not a half century ago.
We all stood around awkwardly, staring into the dirt. We were three generations: dead, old and middle-aged.
They placed every ivory shard on to a blanket, then into a small wooden box.
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