고등학교 공통영어1 (NE능률 민병천) 연계 글

For years, we celebrated every Lunar New Year at Grandma's apartment with my uncle, Dad's younger brother. I was sure that the locked wooden box on her sewing table held a treasure of gold coins. She opened it only when she thought no one was watching.

Last year, my uncle teased Dad by handing him a wool sweater, and everyone laughed when Dad refused even to try it on. That evening, Grandma finally set the box on my lap and turned its tiny key. Inside, there were only ordinary buttons, hundreds of them, in small paper envelopes. Each envelope was marked with a year but no name. I tried to hide my disappointment, but she must have seen it on my face. "Clothes wear out, but buttons last," she said. "I save one from every piece of clothing that I throw away."

From the oldest envelope, she took out a large black button with a crack across it. "Your grandfather wore this the night he first walked me home in the snow," she said. She held it in her palm for a long moment before she put it back. Next, she picked out a tiny yellow button shaped like a duck. She had sewn it onto the first sweater she ever knitted, a gift for a baby boy who cried whenever the sweater went over his head. The last one, a small red button, looked strangely familiar. "This was on your raincoat the day you jumped into every puddle on your way here," she said.

Just then, Dad walked in with two cups of tea and froze when he saw the yellow duck. His ears turned red, and my uncle, who was standing behind him, laughed so hard that he had to lean against the wall. Grandma only smiled and slid the duck back into its envelope.

I had expected to find a fortune. Instead, I found a record of who we had been, kept safe one button at a time. Before I left, I cut a button from my old winter jacket and gave it to Grandma. As she turned the tiny key again, I finally understood why she always kept the box locked.