“Whenever I look at the certificate of patriotic martyr awarded to my mother who was a special-class honoured disabled soldier, I can hardly control tears welling up in my eyes with gratitude to the benevolent country which added lustre to her life and those who showed selfless sincerity for my family,” said Kim Jin Hyang, daughter of the special-class honoured disabled woman soldier.

Saying that she would never forgot Choe Song Ryong, one of those to whom she was most grateful and who worked as an official of the Central Committee of the Artists Union of Korea, she recalled the past decades her family had spent after forging close relations with him.

Story of their making his acquaintance

One day 24 years ago, Im Po Bu happened to see the news about an art exhibition of talented children held at the Pyongyang International House of Culture on TV.

She wanted to raise her four-year-old son Kum Song, who was fond of drawing pictures, like them.

A few days later, a tall man of large and robust build visited her house in Pothonggang-dong No. 1, Pothonggang District, Pyongyang.

He was Choe Song Ryong. He came after receiving a call of a special-class honoured disabled woman soldier who wanted her son to become an artist.

In this way Choe, who worked as an official of the Central Committee of the Artists Union of Korea at that time, made her acquaintance and that of her family.

Later, he bought young Kum Song instruments needed for picture drawing and taught him how to paint pictures.

He did not simply teach him how to paint pictures.

He implanted in his little mind the dearest wish his mother had and an ambition to make his name as a famous artist of the country.

It was because he was deeply impressed by her whenever he visited her house.

“Though she was a special-class honoured disabled soldier who dedicated her youth to the Workers’ Party of Korea and the country, she led others in supporting the Korean People’s Army to bring glory to the noble title of honoured disabled soldier. And she was paraplegic, but with such poor health she even went into the tunnel at the construction site of a power station to recite poems and sing songs to encourage soldier-builders. I took off my hat to her for her noble spiritual world and so I cared much for her son,” said Choe.

Choe’s friends, too, often visited her family.

They told her that Choe was highly praised by Chairman Kim Jong Il for having created lots of fine works in his twenties, that he had trained many artists when he was a lecturer at Pyongyang University of Fine Arts and that he was an unassuming man who risked his life to rescue drowning people, but regarded such a good deed as commonplace.

Im Po Bu was really shocked when she came to know that Choe, who was always simple and modest and much concerned for her little son, was a Kim Il Sung Prize winner, People’s Artist and PhD.

Feeling sympathy with each other’s spiritual world and encouraging each other like this, they developed kindred relationship.

Ties of kinship go on

One day when Kum Song attended the then primary course of Pyongyang Middle School No. 1, he unexpectedly fell into a critical condition and was taken to hospital. At that time, too, Choe Song Ryong was the first to run to the hospital after hearing about it.

He frequently visited the home of the disabled woman soldier to help her family life like his own.

A few years after her family had established close connection with Choe, her family moved to a local area following her husband.

Although they lived in different geographical areas, the kindred ties between her family and Choe grew stronger.

Once, she told him about medicine with good effects on the treatment of her illness on the phone.

After hearing about it, Choe and his wife tried hard to purchase the medicine.

“When she received the medicine, my mother did not know that it was also badly needed by Choe’s wife,” Im’s daughter said.

That is why she always said that their warm affection and tender loving care prolonged her life whenever she received the precious medicines from Choe’s family, she noted.

“Whenever my mother opened her heart to Choe and told him that she always learned a lot from him, he would say that he had yet so many things to learn from her compared with her high spiritual world of having unhesitatingly dedicated herself to the Party and country in her precious girlhood that would never come again,” said Kim Jin Hyang.

Their relationship remained unchanged even with the passage of time as they adopted it as their view of life to find the greatest happiness and pride of life in faithfully doing the work their country wants.