I’ll step in and answer @HK_Lady’s questions for @nrlllee here. – pm3

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HK_Lady asks:

@NRLLEE – Yes, I finished it and the ending was questionable. Not sure if NJ and HS met again after she finished her reincarnation in her deathbed in the hospital. It seemed like they did. IDK. Maybe i need to rewatch that part haha.
but yes, this show made me cry so match, too, @PM3. It just gave me a whole picture of how their lives are so intertwined (past and present and future lives). so crazy. The mystery was finally cleared, but why did NJ decide not to reincarnate with HS?

My answer:

The story is resolved with a happy reunion of our couple after she was reborn, lived to a ripe old age, and died surrounded by her family. At her death, Nakjoon instantly appeared by her side to welcome her home. He looked like an angel in white because Haesook had once claimed that she was frightened by the appearance of the grim reaper. This tells us that she’s destined for heaven again.

I must say that this is the quickest time-jump that I’ve seen in kdramas. She seemed to have just walked through the gates of reincarnation, then, before we knew it, she was lying on a hospital bed. Her doctor walked in, announced that “it’s time” to her family, and led them out of the room.

I can’t help comparing her death this time around to her death in the beginning of the kdrama. Back in Episode 1, she died in a park while tutoring her foster child YeongAe how to dodge dirty water from hostile debtors. Nobody went to her wake, right?

This time, she died peacefully in a well-appointed room that looked like one of those executive medical suites in “Hospital Playlist.” (lol! I knew that kdrama was good for something!) More importantly, her family was gathered at her deathbed. She had children, grandchildren and even a great-grandchild by her side. She was loved by many and I’m sure she’d be missed.

I must note, however, that an elderly husband was missing by her side. How convenient, right? The absence allowed us to imagine that her husband in this lifetime was insignificant and no rival to her true love, Nakjoon.

As for Nakjoon’s reason for not reincarnating, @HK_Lady, he opted to stay behind – or as the President of Heaven called it – to live in a state of “spiritual advancement” for Haesook’s sake. It was the President who proposed this alternative to reincarnation to give Haesook a break from her hard lives.

If you remember, when the President showed Nakjoon that iPad with the file record of his past lives, he discovered that he had lived through 23 reincarnations with HaeSook as his wife, and ALL of them had been a struggle for HaeSook BECAUSE OF HIM.

Sure…perhaps NOT ALL 22 of their past lives were as burdensome as their last life together (when he was confined in bed for most of their married years). But he learned that HIS ATTACHMENT to Haesook has bound her to a cycle of misery. She couldn’t escape a life of hardship because with each new rebirth, he saddles her with his regrets and guilty feelings left over from the previous lifetime.

In other words, she kept getting reborn with him, crossing paths on earth, falling in love all over again, marrying each other, struggling in marriage, dying, meeting in heaven, then vowing to be reincarnated together.

Thus, in a saving act of nobility, Nakjoon decided to let her go so she could finally get a taste of earthly happiness. Of course, that meant living without each other for a lifetime.

That’s why Nakjoon disappeared in the garden. We saw him later, waiting in front of their home, sitting on a rocking chair by the lake. He was self-reflecting for “spiritual advancement.”

And his self-reflection taught him some home truths.

NJ: Heaven without you means nothing to me. I finally get it now. All those days we spent together weren’t spent in Hell, but in happiness. If it’s possible to return to those times, I’d be more than willing. I’d go straight back to that life with you. It was more beautiful than heaven.

So, it’s a heavenly reunion when Haesook wakes up after her 24th death. She recognizes him instantly. And she asks if she did well on her own, even without him by her side.

HS: How…how did I do, honey?
NJ: You did really good. My love, you were great. In this life, too.

Meaning, that in all their past lives, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, Haesook has been a loving, heaven-sent wife.

In reply, Haesook says that she doesn’t think she can do it over again without him.

HS: I don’t think that I know how I could ever continue going on without you.
NJ: I feel the same way.

🙂 That’s the central message of this kdrama, @HK_Lady. Like Nakjoon and Haesook, we can endure lifetimes of hellish suffering as long as we’re together with our loved ones.

After all, heaven is where our beloved is.

Endnotes:

1. As for the young couple who seem to recognize each other and run to meet at the intersection, I don’t think they’re another reincarnation of Nakjoon and Haesook. To me, they’re just another couple who are fated to meet and love again like Nakjoon and Haesook.

2. Don’t forget to watch until the very end of this episode. The epilogue shows a televised interview of Haesook. She’s asked what she wants to do after her reincarnation and she answers – with that mischievous glint in her eyes — that she wants to be an actress. Meta!

3. This kdrama is tearjerkingly good but it exposes the problems of reincarnation and some reasons I reject it.

Overall, I thought the kdrama wrapped up fine.