to shield the blast from the three of them

"Years later, in the chaos of a firefight, Prany watched as a farmer picked up and brought a live grenade to his stomach to shield the blast from the three of them. They had been wandering the mountains in the east and had been running toward an abandoned truck that was blocking the passage.

"As the grenade detonated, as the man's shirt ballooned before he sank to his knees, Prany thought of his father--the smell of him, his poor posture, the permanent tar stains on his fingers. How in the early mornings as Noi slept, Prany would sneak out ahead of him, climb a tree, and wait for his father's motorbike to pass under along the road."

~~ from Run Me to Earth by Paul Yoon

Does it ever bother you?

"Does it ever bother you?" Martha said. "That you live in, and are now a citizen of, the country that bombed you first?"

[Khit] said she didn't think about it as much anymore. She didn't want to. They got out. They lived.

She said, "I think of my son. What kind of life he will have. Whether he will ride a bicycle or play baseball. Whether he will have a family of his own one day. Whether he will be happy and healthy and safe, and whether he will carry in him the sadness I carry. I think always of my mother, my biological mother, and whether she died alone."

~~ from Run Me to Earth by Paul Yoon

a life could vanish

"He thought of these years as another life within the one he had.  As though it were a thing he was able to carry. A small box. A handkerchief. A stone. He did not understand how a life could vanish. How that was even possible. How it could close in an instant before you could reach inside one last time, touch someone's hand one last time. How there would come a day when no one would wonder about the life he had before this one."

~~ from Snow Hunters by Paul Yoon