This morning uh-muh-ni came padding into the kitchen complaining of heaviness. My whole body feels heavy, I don’t know why this happens. She stretched onto tip-toes for a box of cereal from the top shelf. It’s been there for over a year. Fumbling with it she noted, Oh, I never opened this. Scrambling out the door to babysit two kids at church, breakfast would have to be on the go. She jammed a fistful of popcorn into one baggy, and poured the over-one-year-old cereal into another. I’m hungry, she said, I’ll eat these in the car. Like a stoner with munchies. Baggies sealed, she dashed out the door.

Uh-muh-ni returned at noon, famished. Between bites of kimchi fried rice, she came over to show me her iPad—the latest Korean reality dating show she was hooked on. Look at this couple, this man said his date looks like a cat. They were on a coffee-date. The man meticulously etched a cat face in the milk foam atop his date’s cappuccino. This is what love looks like. Uh-mh-ni sank into her favorite chair, smiling at her iPad like a happy child.

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“Smily” is a nickname my mother gave herself. These are a collection of stories and poems written for her.