The name.

Kim is my last name. I'm originally from South Korea, and when I moved to North America, people couldn't quite get my first name right — so Kim it became. I decided to keep it. It's mine. It's where I'm from.

Pom was my cat.

 

The cat.

We found him at a shelter a couple months after my husband and I came home from our honeymoon. He was scared when we first brought him home — hissed, growled, didn't trust us for weeks. But little by little, he opened up. And then one day he just... became the most gentle, loving creature. He slept by our feet every night. He had the silkiest, softest long hair — half grey, half white. He was annoying at 5am when he wanted food, and we loved him completely.

When our daughter was born, I was terrified. I genuinely didn't know if I could be a mother. But I watched Pom with her — patient while she pulled his hair, calm while she lay on him, still while she grabbed his ears and nose — and something shifted in me. He showed me what unconditional love looks like. Both giving it and receiving it. He gave me the courage to love without condition, to be present, to stay in the moment.

He passed away almost four years ago. I still find it hard to talk about his last days. But he makes me smile, and I'm glad his name is here alongside mine. He deserves to be here.

The candles.

I started making candles ten years ago. What began as something I made for people I cared about became something people kept coming back for, year after year. I still make every candle by hand, in Canada, with the same care I put into the first one.

I'm not trying to fill your home with noise. I make candles for the quiet moments — the ones you carve out for yourself after a long day, the ones that make a house feel like it belongs to you.

That's what Kim & Pom is. A name, a cat, and ten years of making something real.

— Kim