Trying to make sense of it all

Ahhhh... It's good to come back to a place where I don't have to put up a front... where I don't have to act tough... where I don't have to worry about grammatical errors, my reputation, or sounding smart. It's good to have a place where I can just be... well, just BE.

And let myself feel... hurt... cry...

My uncle recently died of pancreatic cancer. I had only met him once before, nine years ago. He only lived about 90 minutes away from where I am. We went there to visit him about two weeks after he was diagnosed. Just like our first meeting, I felt an instant connection. I felt that I had more in common with him than anyone else in my family. Strange... He is my mother's half brother. They have a fascinating story to tell. They grew up in Korea. First in North Korea, then in Seoul, after Korea gained independence from Japan. Their father, my grandfather, was a doctor. Shortly before the Korean war, he traveled to China to take care of his father's estate after he passed away. My great-grandfather supposedly was a prominent businessman in China (owned a tobacco company?) who was said to have been a good friend of Chiang Kai-shek. - Close enough to have used his private airplane for business trips (not sure if that's true but fun to tell nevertheless).

While my grandfather was in China, the Korean War broke out, and the family never saw him again. My uncle was 11.

My uncle worked at Disneyland for a while as an electrician when he was younger. He was friends with Pat Morita, the Japanese actor. He seemed quite proud of that part of his life. He moved to Virgina some time ago, and settled there. He has three sons, my cousins whom I do not know. I met two of them at the house that day.

As I was standing there holding his hand, with tears running down his face, I promised myself I will get to know him better. I wanted to visit him often and ask him the endless questions that were swirling in my head about where we came from. He looked as though he could possibly recover.

Less than a month later, he's dead. I never got to visit him again. We didn't even get to go to his funeral, as they somehow could not get a hold of us - my parents' phone was out of order for two weeks.

My mom sat down with me after we visited him that day and told me their story as she remembered it. It broke my heart.

I wanted to write his story of being sent away by his mother at age 6, having to endure rejection from his new family, always being misunderstood as the problem child, being blamed for his first wife's death in an auto accident, having so many talents and gifts, his inability to believe in God, and being shunned and criticized by Christians. He was always cheerful, gregarious, great fun to be with... he was loved by many in public, but none of them completely accepted him. He lived a life of loneliness.

When we saw him, he said, "I have so many regrets. I wanted to live to be 83, because I heard that's how long my father had lived in China. I wanted to be just like him. It doesn't look like I'll make it." When I heard these words, I sensed that my uncle longed for his father all of his life. He was 69.

Good-bye, Uncle Chung-gil... I've only known you very briefly, but I did feel connected to you. You are loved, respected, and remembered... by your family that you loved.. and the rest of your family that should have gotten to know you.




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Image credit: Don Hong-Oai