Life began with Seoul

My Loving Wife,

As I rapidly approach my 97th birthday, as the Chinese count them, a birthday I will not actually reach despite that I can see it just there ahead, I wish to express the fullness of my feelings I yet know for you my lover, companion, closest friend, my dear wife. This despite that words themselves are utterly incapable of the task. Words will have to do though as sadly they are all I am left with after a lifetime of battle which would appear has finally brought me right up against my ultimate end.

These past forty-six years have been the very best years of my life, and every bit of that is because of you. You have been the greatest partner a man could ever know. A queen who raised a foolish prince to a king. I never would have accomplished such things as I have been able to in this life without you. Only because I knew you would never leave my side did I take on the world and win. You gave me the unrestrained absolute love and compassion I needed to grow into the man I was meant to be. And you gave me two incredible children and five grandchildren who have without any reservation been the single greatest joy in my life.

I know I have always been a reserved and withdrawn man, one who has never been truly comfortable with others, who needed far too much time alone. None of which was ever easy for you or those others who have loved and cared for me. I know I have never been good at expressing the depth of my feelings, feelings which perhaps run too deeply and far too powerfully like the molten metals of the Earth’s core. And I know there have been times I hurt you deeply by shutting you out as I dealt with the demons. Demons your love tamed but could not make go away. Withdrawal which is even now my only defense mechanism and the single manner in which I have hurt you most deeply.

The only way I know to express the fullness of my love and respect for you is to tell you the story of our life together as I have seen it, as I have experienced it. I know it is very late in our lives and I should have done this many, many years ago. But I’ve seen far too many of those I love come to their ends without ever having expressed these things, and I’ve seen the pain this has caused in those left behind. My love for you will not allow me to meet my own end having gone into your greatest fear, the ultimate withdrawal into which you will ultimately lose me, without having said what must be said. So I will tell the story of my passion for you and from the beginning. As my tired old mind cannot remember or express it in any other order.

When I arrived at your language school forty-eight years ago now, while you were yet married to your first husband, a good man, I had little hope I would one day call you my wife. I felt great compassion for your husband, for the pain your leaving him would cause. But I knew without a doubt even in this meeting should you make those incredibly difficult choices and actions to be with me, you would find your true partner, your equal in all things. And I knew should I one day receive a message that you were ready, my life would truly begin in that moment. Though to be honest I left there after that day, which had been uncomfortable for all, believing you would never make those choices, would never take that leap of faith to what was quite possibly everything you truly wanted and needed.

So I returned home to the US, back to building up my company, finishing my PhD studies and to the love and care of my daughter from my own first marriage. And I dove heavy into everything as means to keep my mind off thoughts of you. A task I failed at miserably. Often finding myself losing focus in conversations, sometimes important meetings, as I wondered where and how you were, praying you were living a good, full happy life. On the flight back across the Pacific Ocean I had fully committed myself to a single purpose, building wealth for my family, a single minded kind of focus allowing no room for relationships. And I know I told you I never had a doubt you would come to me. However, in those two years after that day I met your then husband and you, years in which we had no contact, I was fully committed to living out my days alone believing our love would not be in this lifetime.

And then it happened, the message came, almost two years since we had spoken last. Oh, it wasn’t a direct message, that isn’t your way, and you were shy and not sure I still felt the same way for you. But I heard and understood the message. A message came when I was sitting in the boardroom in a meeting dedicated to closing on a round of investment. A very critical meeting. A meeting I had to excuse myself from midway through in order to compose myself. Even now I cannot express what I felt then, more than to say utter and overwhelming happiness, unlike any other time in my life except the births of my children and our grandchildren.

As you know, there was no way I would delay and so I called a friend and borrowed his jet and pilot to make the long trip from San Francisco to Seoul that very night. What you don’t know is I spent the entire flight running through millions of thoughts and emotions, mostly centered around that very first meeting after so very long and so many life changes. While I had kept myself in very good shape physically, I was yet five years older than when we had first met, and in my early fifties. Who knew if you, yet a young and beautiful woman, would still find me attractive. None of it mattered really as I’ve always had more confidence than I should. And that one fateful flight was the single happiest journey I have ever taken.

That first moment I saw you I was overwhelmed with how much more beautiful you had become. Vulnerable, hopeful, uncertain but resolute. Still not the kind to make the first move. I know there was a moments doubt flicked through you as I hesitated. But I want you to know these many years later, I did not hesitate to take you in my arms out of doubt. Instead, I was simply overwhelmed with the depth of my feelings for you in that moment, for the sheer force of the love I knew for you, unlike any force I had before or since been blessed to know. And when I finally did pull you close, in the very first embrace since our first meeting, I knew in that instant, in the way your body hesitated and then melted into my own, that I would never let you go again. I would never be far from your side for the remainder of this life. And one of those things I have taken pride of in life, is just this, that in all our many years, there have only been a small handful of days I have ever been more than a few hours away from you.

And a year later, during a beautiful San Francisco summer afternoon, in the comfortable home we had created for ourselves overlooking the Bay, that you told me you were pregnant with my only son Ronin, my love for you reached depths I never knew love could go. And two years later when you called me from Korea, while visiting your parents and friends, to tell me you were pregnant with our beautiful daughter Regan, the power of my love for you was even more without measure. There were so many times you didn’t see me as I secretly watched in awe at the care you gave the incredible children you gave me. I never let you know because I simply could not express the fullness of what I saw and how that made me feel. Though more than one night this led me to express my passions for you in the only language I have ever known to express such things, not always waiting to reach our large comfortable bed.

Those first ten years as we put everything into building up the investment company, sacrificed absolutely everything, to include time with our own children, as we traveled the world for business, you were my strength to fight all the battles need fought. When I lost fights, as is inevitable at times, you kept me grounded, connected to what has always mattered most in this life, our love for one another and our children. You never let me waver from the warrior, as a king cannot. And all the while you watched and learned business and finance and built bridges to wealth, decision makers, power brokers and gatekeepers I could not. Until one day you were ready and took over your own investments, began to sit on boards and to be your own power player. And I reveled to see your successes and the ups and downs, the knowledge they brought you. I would brag about you shamelessly, all the time, with anyone who would listen, to include our children, though of course I never wanted you to know that and bribed them shamelessly to never tell you. A confession, a little late in coming, the reason Regan received the Mercedes you were so adamant against for her sixteenth birthday.

When you retired from the firm to dedicate your life to employing your considerable investor skills and our network in impact investing, dedicated yourself to using our success to help others succeed, I finally accepted I had married a woman who was genuinely a better person than I. Something I had long known. I knew and still know immense gratitude that life blessed me with such an incredibly strong, loving and intelligent woman as you. I often wondered, sheepishly, why you had chosen to love a far too directly spoken, rough edged Irish fool such as myself when you could have had any man on the planet. Then I would smile because it didn’t matter, you had chosen me to love, to be the father of your children, and the man you had chosen to make a king.

I know you believed I had affairs over the years, resulting mostly from the whisperings of others with agendas and your own doubts. Being the strong Asian woman I fell in love with, you never said a thing, never approached me, kept it to yourself. I knew but didn’t have the strength to revisit the fights of my first marriage, so I never said anything to lift this concern from you. I was wrong. This caused a pain in you I should never have allowed and for which I know great sadness. This is not to say there were not temptations, great temptations at times. But from that first moment I came to collect you in Seoul there has been no woman in this world or the Universe as a whole who could ever compete with you, in any form or fashion. There has never been a woman, no matter how beautiful, intelligent or caring, worth the loss of you. You need to know, perhaps too late to matter. I have never once even as much as kissed another woman since that first time I wrapped you in my arms. And while I had been with many women in my years before you, no woman has ever captivated and owned me sexually as you did and do, even now our bodies are old and brittle.

The way you loved my first born, my daughter from first marriage, as your own, without trying to be her mother, to overshadow her mother, was a wonder to watch. How you never treated her or her children any differently than your own children and grandchildren. How you raised Ronin and Regan in the Asian way to respect her as the elder child, the first born. Though to be honest, when I pursued you, long before you were married to your first husband, I knew. I knew this maternal love was and is the single greatest force in your life. And that your love for me is a direct extension of this. It is riddled through every bit of your being, every aspect of you. Just as being a father is for me. We’ve raised beautiful, healthy and successful children, and we did it always together. We’ve never fought in front of our children, nor spoken ill of one another before them, nor allowed them to play the mommy-daddy game. Because though I’ve spoiled them terribly, making you so very angry at times, I never once disagreed with you about what was truly important regarding our children and their children.

We’ve had our fights, some few, here and there over the years. Believed more than once it was over and we could not continue. But we never made decisions in anger and always ended up in a sexual collision and stronger for it all. I should have stood up more, said more, risked more fights to clear the air, to ensure you truly understood where my mind was in that situation, to overcome the cultural and language barrier. But we cannot escape our past and my time with my first wife was endless war, a war I never wished to know with you. So I said far too little, let you continue to believe things which were not true and sometimes hurtful simply for the sake of peace. I have never felt a coward in life, have always taken on great personal risk, except when I look back at these things. And any shame I feel in life, it is for this.

Then when my body started to finally fail, as I aged faster than you, as the much older partner, you never once allowed me to see myself any other way than still handsome and commanding of all your attentions. I’ve never said anything about any of this, not once. And I need you to know, for an old and vain warrior like myself, the look in your eyes as you looked at me no matter how aged I became, so full of that very same passion we discovered our first night naked and together, kept me alive. This alone kept me alive and healthy far more years than I should have been blessed to know. And my passion for you has never lessened in any fashion as you have aged, as you are now eighty one years old yourself. You are still the most beautiful woman I have ever known and I still want to take you, show you the power of the passions trapped within this broken old body of mine, every moment we are alone together.

As I close my eyes for the long sleep you need to know you have been my love, my life, my everything. There never has and never will be another you. And I will find you in the next life no matter the challenges put before me. You are my soulmate and death will not end our love story. Please do go on, for yourself and our children and grandchildren, live a long and happy life. May you know the great grandchildren I will never have the chance to meet in this life. And when your long life is finally spent, and you find yourself where I am now, slip away knowing I am waiting for you to start our next adventure together, to wrap you in my arms and to make love to you with all the passion of my Irish soul then once more in a young man’s body.

Okay my love. I need to sleep now. To make that final journey across the River Sticks, the one I will finally not return from in this life. There are so many more things I wished to do in this life, more contributions, more righting of wrongs, more battles I wished to fight, more years loving you. But I have no regrets. I’ve had an extraordinary life, done far more than most, been blessed in ways most would never understand. Know that I am not afraid, it has never been my way to know fear. And how can I know fear going into the long goodnight bathed as I am in the life and love we have known for one another these many years. Goodnight love of my life. I’ll be waiting for you on the other side. So wear something sexy or nothing at all.

Your Eternally Faithful Loving Husband,

EM