On January 21st, as I was down with the flu, I received this e-mail from my cousin:

Hi everyone,

My dad passed away this afternoon very peacefully. My brother played a song that reminded my dad of his parents. My dad opened his eyes and looked directly at Peter – the first time he’s done this in many days – and then waited for my mom to come to the room, and then passed away.

We haven’t figured out yet when the funeral will be but I will let you know as soon as it’s decided.

Thanks everyone. It’s been a long journey and also a very special one.

Christina

I had a task entry for over a year, “blog about Francis” which I finally deleted yesterday. It has a huge number of notes, and in a different time I might revisit them. There is so much to write about my Uncle, I don’t know where to begin.

Instead, for this first entry, I’ll link to some of my old articles about him.

• 2007 June: My Love affair with chinatown continues…
• 2007 July: A fish(y) story
• 2007 December: It isn’t Thanksgiving without the kimchee
• 2010 October: We’re dying
• 2012 June: The Washington Monument (and me)
• 2016 October: Article in U of Utah magazine
• 2016 November: Us in Korea
• 2016 November: Tijuana
• 2016 November: Photo of Francis
• 2018 July: Yellow Watermelon
• 2019 January: January 26th
• 2019 February: Uncle Francis’s review on the movie “Roma”

Francis was the older brother of my mom, Teresa — so close in age they are almost Irish Twins. As you can imagine, they were competitive and very close in a way only siblings like that could be. Losing him was like losing mom again. At the funeral, it felt like I was like her, losing my brother.

As they are both Catholics, instead, I suppose mom is finally seeing her brother, exactly five days short of twenty-one years later.