Remembering Mom

Mom passed away December 17th. Following are the notes for my remembrances at her memorial service January 12th.

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One of my earliest memories of Mom was a song that nobody else remembers. Maybe she made it up, but it went something like this (my attempt at the score is at right):

With Donna in the family happy happy home
Happy happy home!
Happy happy home!
With Donna in the family happy happy home
Happy happy home!

Each verse would have some other family member. We must have been very young.

Mom would be embarrased to hear me say this, but she was brilliant. She skipped two grades in elementary school. She’s the only one in our family I know of who got a Fulbright fellowship—she studied in England. When she worked part-time as an employment counselor, she successfully placed more job seekers per month than any of her full-time colleagues. But what makes me proudest to be her son was her amazing love and generosity of spirit.

At work, when some of the first trans-gender clients were seeking employment and nobody knew how to help them, our mom said, “Give me training and I’ll take some of them.” They referred all the transgender clients to her. What about the training? This was the 1970s; there was no training! She listened compassionately and intelligently, and learned how to advocate for them. Have I mentioned that Mom placed more clients per month than any of her full-time colleagues, even though she handled the cases everybody else thought would be too hard?

Not only did she love and care her own kids, she cared for some of our cousins, and for some of her grandkids too. When I was in high school, Mom led a group of youth at this church. She took a leave of absence, then early retirement, to take care of her mom, our Halmoni. A few years later, Mom’s sister-in-law moved in and Mom took care of her, too. She prepared and delivered sermons at the Korean care home down the street from here. She visited shut-ins; she told me about one elderly lady who needed help taking a bath but didn’t have anyone. As Mom told me later, “Why shouldn’t I help her take a bath?” as she helped her mom and sister-in-law. And she did.

She took care of these people; was she a good patient too? Not so much.

Mom lived the gospel by loving and giving. I think she did a great job, and that by now she’s heard the commendation from the Lord that we all long for: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”