Two years ago, at the end of winter, I emptied the packet of lebkuchkenteig (gingerbread dough) into the waste bin.

It wasn’t just dough I was throwing away.

For all the years we have been here, making a gingerbread house was my child’s earnest wish. And my wish was to fulfil his.

Last year, I watched a detailed video to make a gingerbread house at least a dozen times. I scoured the supermarkets to get a good-quality gingerbread dough to expedite the process. In the end, after the Christmas festivities died down and winter made way to spring, the gingerbread house was yet to be made.

Making a gingerbread house is ideally spread across a week, said the baker in the video that I had watched.

7 days, 168 hours, 10080 minutes, 604800 seconds.

In the middle of all these numbers, I couldn’t garner enough time to build a house that my child had wished for. What could be worse than that I thought?

Apparently, the worst was yet to come  — the act of throwing away what was rotten.

Every time I opened the refrigerator, the dough looked back at me like a reminder of all the things I hadn’t done. The longer I kept it, the heavier it felt.

A weight of sadness, guilt and remorse grew a little more with each time I laid my eyes on it. I reached out to grasp it to throw it away a hundred times. And a hundred times, I curled my hand back into my guilt-and-sadness-strapped soul.

My love for Korean drama and BTS had by that time led me on the path of studying the root meanings of Korean words that piqued my interest. Among them was the word 안녕 (annyeong).

Annyeong is an informal greeting in Korean for both hello and goodbye. Curious as to why the same word is used in two different and diverging contexts, I delved into studying this word.

The sentiment carried forward in the Korean word annyeong, meaning “being at ease without trouble”, is to sincerely wish someone well, whether a welcome greeting or when bidding adieu.

What troubles us is often not trouble itself. It is the backpack of emotions triggered by that trouble that cascades into a tsunami that endangers the serenity of our soul.

This greeting, which travels between the space of a hello and a goodbye, tugged at my soul that strives to be in the here and now always.

That end-of-winter afternoon, I held the expired pack of the lebkuchen in my warm hands and softly said, “Annyeong”. In saying goodbye to what had rotted, I made peace with a part of myself I had let sit too long in guilt.

I stroked the cool packet surface, unwrapped the dough from the packaging and segregated the waste. I still felt sad as I chugged the dough in the food waste bin. It still did hurt.

For the gingerbread house that was not made.

For the sad heart of a child who had wanted to do it for years.

For the guilty heart of the mother who couldn’t manage to make her child smile.

And yet, I felt lighter. As if the baggage of guilt and sadness and despair of being a nonachiever was fading away.

As I revisit that moment now, I realise what had transpired in that moment of bidding adieu.

The burden of carrying the dreams of another had morphed into the realisation that before I share my bowl of love with others, I need to pause to fill it with love for myself.

So, this winter, I decided to infuse my child’s dream of making a gingerbread house with my love for baking cakes. I still need to figure out the details of what can be created.

Who knows, maybe we will say annyeong to a floating gingerbread house panorama on a cake this Christmas day!

Healing, I’ve learned, begins in small goodbyes — in letting go with kindness.

What are you greeting to be at ease without trouble today?