Photobook on father's day

My Life in Pictures & Verse

from Korea to America

Jeesue Kim

dedicated to my father, Taewoo Kim

Father's Day, June 20, 2010

with gratitude, beyond wordswhen lost in translation

My Life in Pictures and Verse

1

Introduction

In understanding my father, it has taken many years, almost a lifetime. At first I tried to avoid it and sought my own destiny. As I searched for different journeys in different states and different countries, the wise sayings of my father and his adventures always stayed with me.

A soldier's life is quite drastic and different from a civilian. This made it all the more difficult for me in trying to comprehend him when I lived with him in America. As a boy he grew up knowing he would have to fight in a major world war. Little did the world realize how great of a war it would be, bringing a permanent demarcation at the DMZ, dividing the country between North and South Korea.

In such context I tried to view my father’s life, from a turning point in history after the Cultural Revolution in China, World War II, and the Philippines Insurrection. My life can never be in similar paths, but the fascination to history and human trauma made me adept in recording lives of the past in historical context.

And so this book is created, to bring light upon my father who was a great war hero, a great teacher, and a dedicated father.


3

Military training

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address


4

My dear parents

Our Father knows what’s best for us, So why should we complain. We always want the sunshine,But He knows there must be rain.We love the sound of laughterAnd the merriment of cheer...

There is a reason for everything -


6

Our Father tests us oftenWith suffering and sorrow.He tests us not to punish us,But to help us meet Tomorrow.

My wife and child


7

My life in Burma

For growing trees are strengthenedWhen they withstand the storm.And the sharp cut of the chiselgives the marble grace and form...


8

God never hurts us needlessly,And He never wastes our pain,For every lose He sends to usIs followed by rich gain...


9

And when we count the blessingsThat God has so freely sent,We will find no cause for murmuringAnd no time to lament.


10

For Our Father loves His children,And to Him all things are plain,So He never sends us PleasuresWhen the Soul’s deep need is pain...


11

farewell to Burma

So whenever we are troubled,And when everything goes wrong,It is just God working in usTo makes our spirit strong.


My life in Korea


14

A Psalm of Life … with my blessed family

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem.


15

New additions

Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou art, to dust returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.


16

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,Is our destined end or way;But to act, that each tomorrowFind us farther than today.


17

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,And our hearts, though stout and brave,Still, like muffled drums, are beatingFuneral marches to the grave.


18

In the world’s broad field of battle,In the bivouac of life,Be not like dumb, driven cattle!Be a hero in the strife!

Hard Times


19

Trust no future, howe’er pleasant!Let the dead Past bury its dead!Act, --- act in the living Present!Heart within, and God o’erhead!

made me leave Korea


21

In America

Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sands of time;


22


23

Footprints, that perhaps anotherSailing o’erlife’s solemn main,A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,Seeing, shall take heart again.

My life in San Francisco


24

Let us then, be up and doing,With a heart for any fate;


25

Still achieving, still pursuing,Learn to labor and to wait.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


26

My family in Sunnyvale

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live.


27

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.


28

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow- this ground.

Our lives in San Jose


29

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.


30

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

in Campbell


31

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us ...


32

That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion...


33

That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain...

a visit to Korea


34

that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom….

and a farewell


36

in retirement

The Life of Taewoo Kim

Education

Photobook on father's day