“Mona Lisa” Feels Like Freedom: BTS, Grief, and The Soundtrack That Saved Me

I didn’t expect to find freedom in Korean pop music. 
Not after the month I’d just lived through. 
Not after a lifetime of death knocking on the door and overstaying its welcome. 

But in the wreckage of my father’s final days, in the long drives between states and hospital rooms, something broke open. 
And into that crack? 
Came music. 
Came light. 

Let me back up. 

In October, my wife started listening to BTS. Like, exclusively. 
I didn’t think much of it at first - just Dana being Dana, doing deep dives into the things she loves. 
A few months later, she asked me to go to a J-Hope concert. 
Sure, why not? Not my thing, but I’ve dragged her through enough of my shows to return the favor. 

Then February came. 
And the floor gave out. 

My father’s health collapsed. 
I was back in Missouri, trying to keep him alive. 
Trying to keep myself sane. 
Trying to survive a grief I wasn’t ready to carry yet. 

I played the usual: sad bastard music. 
It didn’t help. 
It made it worse. 

When I got back home to Georgia, Dana was blasting BTS in the loft - getting ready for that concert, weeks away. 
I was in cortisol hell. 
But the music was… different. 
Bright. Strange. Liberating. 
I caught myself exhaling. Actually exhaling. 

Then came the call. 
Dad had chosen to stop treatment. 

We packed up and drove ten hours through flatland and farmland to Missouri. 
And the whole way there? 
BTS. 

J-Hope. Suga. RM. Jin. V. JK. Jimin. All of them. 
Their voices became the oxygen in the car. 

And when my dad died the next day - when the world tilted again - I didn’t go back to the sad bastard music. 
I kept playing BTS. 
Because, for once, I didn’t want to spiral. 

We flew to Puerto Rico a week later for a conference Dana had scheduled. I was hollowed out, but standing. 
And there, in the tropical air - away from machines, monitors, and mortality - I felt something I hadn’t felt in decades. 

Breath. 
Real breath. 
The kind that doesn’t hitch in the chest or brace for impact. 
My shoulders dropped. 
My jaw unlocked. 
My heart cracked - but not in grief. In relief. 

And through it all, BTS played. 
Their songs were joy with depth. 
Color with darkness. 
Beauty with teeth. 

There’s a track J-Hope dropped called “Mona Lisa. ”
It came out right when I started to feel free again. 
And it hit me in the chest like a thunderclap. 

It felt like freedom. 

Not fake freedom. 
Not fireworks or flags. 
But the quiet, personal kind. 
The kind that lives in breath, and bones, and blood that doesn’t boil anymore. 

I spent 25 years sleeping in the ER waiting rooms of my family’s pain. 
Twenty-five years of funerals, late-night calls, and trauma so routine it became furniture. 
And then - 
A synth line. A voice. A hook. 

And I came back to myself. 

Look, I’m still the guy who grew up on Rage Against the Machine and The Prodigy. 
I’m still the kid too cool for NSYNC and Backstreet Boys (but still listens to them in secret). 
But I’m also someone new now. 

Someone healing. 

I don’t know what your path back to yourself looks like. 
But mine came soundtracked by a Korean boy band. 
And I’m not embarrassed by that. 
I’m grateful. 

Because Mona Lisa feels like freedom. 

And after what I’ve been through?
 I’ll take all the freedom I can get.