Here is the translation of this part into English:
My name is Thérèse and I am sixty-three years old. Widowed since I was young, I raised my only daughter, Mary Lou, all by myself. She was smart, sweet, and beautiful. People used to say she had a bright future ahead of her. And indeed, she did.
At twenty-one, she met Kang Jun, a Korean man nearly twenty years older than her. I opposed it—not out of prejudice, but because of the age gap and the distance. But my daughter was stubborn. There was a determination in her eyes that I just couldn’t change.
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They got married in a simple ceremony. A month later, she left with him for South Korea. At the airport, she hugged me and cried. I cried too, quietly. I thought she would come back in a few years. She never did. One year passed. Then two. Then five. I stopped asking. Only the money kept coming: every year, exactly eighty thousand dollars, accompanied by a short note: “Mom, take care of yourself. I’m fine.” That word—fine—was what worried me the most. We did a video call once. She was still beautiful, but her gaze wasn’t the same anymore. Always in a hurry. Always distant. I asked her why she hadn’t come home. She fell silent, and then said: “I’m just very busy, Mom.” I didn’t push. Sometimes mothers become cowards out of fear of hearing the truth.
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