Over the past month, I have read two powerfully moving graphic novels about the separation of families during war. Miriam Katin’s We Are On Our Own focuses on Miram and her mother’s escape from the Nazis in Budapest during World War II. Along with Katin’s memoir, I read Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s The Waiting, a fictional story, based on Gendry-Kim’s mother and sister being separated during the Korean War, separated by the 38th parallel which split the country in two. The Waiting tells the story of Gwija, whose novelist daughter Jina relates it, and her experiences during the Korean War and the separation of Gwija from her son and husband.

The Waiting moves back and forth between the past and the present, detailing the feelings of loss and the physical separation enacted because of the war. In the present, The Waiting centers around the 2018 family reunions at Mount Kumgang in North Korea. These reunions, occurring 65 years after the end of the Korean War and held in conjnuction with the South Korean and North Korean governments, reunited families and loved ones who had been separated for decades. 57,000 families applied for the reunions, and only 89 were selected.

In “A Lifetime of Waiting, the afterward to The Waiting, Gendry-Kim talks about the 2018 reunion and her mother’s reaction to not getting accepted to participate. She writes, “She was heartbroken and disappointed, and asked me to find out why she hadn’t been chosen. She has never been the type to call me, even when she has a problem, but she must have been desperate this time.” Gendy-Kim’s mother did not know what had happened to her sister, is she was still alive, if she was well, or anything else. It would be one thing if they could call, write letters, or exchange videos, but they could not do this because of North Korea’s insular positioning.

Gendry-Kim visually represents this separation at the top of “A Lifetime of Waiting” with the depiction of two hands reaching out for one another but unable to touch. Blank space exists between them, keeping them forever apart. The hands at the top of the page belong to Jaesuk and Eonni, sisters who get to take part in the reunion in The Waiting. In the chapter “Thank You For Staying Alive,” Jaesuk tells Gwija about reuniting with her sister, the experience of traveling to North Korea, sitting with her sister, and then leaving her again, knowing that she may never see or hear from her sister again.

Hands appear prominently in Jaesuk and Eonni’s reunion. Speaking with Gwija about the preparations she made for the reunion, we see Jaesuk staring at us. The page contains three panels, and the first shows Jaesuk’s face looking outward as she tells Gwija about the night before her departure, her nervousness and anxiousness. The next panel depicts Jaesuk packing the presents she bought for Eonni. We see her in three positions, all in the act of packing. The final panel links to the first, showing Jaesuk’s hands in her lap.

No words appear in the final panel. We only see Jaesuk’s hands, clapsed togtether, as if in thought and contemplation. Her hands that packed the bags, that bought the presents, that prepared for the trip. Her hands are intertwined, and they are detailed. We see Jaesuk’s age, the effects of time on her body. We see the wear that the worrying and dread have had on her.

Later, Jaesuk shows Gwija the scarf that Eonni gave her at their reunion. She stands in the doorway, with the scarf around her neck and tells Gwija that all of the South Koreans received these scarfs from their relatives. The next page shows three panels with Jaesuk’s words. Each of these panels show hands, hands that look like Jaesuk’s hands; however, it is unclear if they are Jaesuk’s hands or if they are Jaesuk and Eonni reaching for each other. This feeling occurs because this moment serves as a transition in the narrative from Jaesuk speaking with Gwija in the present to Jaesuk meeting her sister.

The first panel shows the two hands close together, not touhcing, with the narration separating them. Jaesuk says that the North Koreans would not let the sisters speak alone. They would always hover the sisters and other families. In the next panel, the hands become spearated further as Jaesuk talks about the questions she wished she’d asked Eonni during their private times. Here, the distance relates the loss of time and opportunity for Jaesuk to ask these questions. The final panel shows one hand near the middle and the other near the right side of the panel as Jaesuk says, “She told me to live to a hundred, then maybe we’d get to meet one more time. But how can I guarantee that? Even if I could. will our countries be unified by then?” The positioning of the hands in this panel shows pulling away, the continued separation that occurs.

At the end of the reunion, Jaesuk sits on the train and screams out of the window for her sister. They grab hands, holding on for as long as possible. In the middle two panels on this page, Jaesuk reaches out of the window towards her sister, telling her, “Sis, stay healthy!” In the right panel, Eonni reaches for Jaesuk and tells her, “Take care, my sweet sister.” We do not see their hands; instead we only see their arms. The gutter, too, separates them; however, they appear as one, joined together. In fact, a line exists between the panels, linking the sisters.

This link disappears in the last two panels on the page. Here, we just see the sister’s hands. The left panel shows Jaesuk’s hand reaching out of the window, with no words. The right panel shows Eonni’s hand reaching up, grasping for Jaesuk, as Jaesuk narrates, “How nice it would have been if we could have held hands and slept together like when we were kids. But we weren’t allowed to share rooms.” They regrasp hands on the next page, joined in one panel, but as the train begins to move, they must relinquish each other. We see a panel with their hands intertwined, but we end Eonni cyring as Jaesuk speeds away.

The chapter ends with a full page showing Jaesuk folding her scarf. Where her hands are, we see Eonni and Jaesuk in the past, as sisters, standing together with their arms entangled. We do not see Jaesuk’s full hands. The image of the younger sisters appears in this space. Thinking about the earlier page of three panels with the hands, we can think about this as Jaesuk folding the scarf and thinking, as she does, about her sister. he tactile nature of touching teh scarf, of holding it, links her to her sister. While she cannot hold her hand, she can hold the scarf. It’s a poignant portrait of Jaesuk and Eonni, linking them across space to one another.

Hands play a major role in The Waiting, and the following was just an example. Gendry-Kim’s use of hands underscores the separation and loss at the heart of The Waiting, the connection but also the tearing apart. What are your thoughts? As always, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @silaslapham.