The two instances in which our whole family gathers together are weddings and funerals; with 6 girls and 16 grandchildren, there have been quite a few weddings.
As we get older, though, there are also more funerals. It wasn’t until I hosted my mother’s funeral that I realized why it’s typical for a lot of Koreans to spend funerals eating and drinking all night. You forget about your sorrow, even for a brief moment, when you see friends you haven’t seen in years.
My mom passed away in 2019 at the age of 92. Her health deteriorated rapidly. I went to see her in January of 2019 hoping I would get to see her while she was still conscious. In February, the doctor called and told us she only had a couple of days left to live. Us four who lived in the US flew out to see her, but it turned out to be a false alarm.
She finally passed away in March– only 10 days after we came home from our 2nd visit. We left for Korea again as soon as we heard the news but barely arrived in time for the 2nd day of the funeral. Thankfully, my 2 older sisters who live in Korea were able to arrange everything. We found comfort in the fact that she didn’t suffer for too long after growing ill.
During the funeral process, we supported and comforted one other. We had a meaningful time talking about mom and how lucky we were to have such parents. It was almost like an unplanned family reunion. I could feel that mom would be so happy knowing her girls would be ok without her.
At the funeral, Lira unni announced astonishing news. She said we needed to talk about the inheritance.
Inheritance? I thought. As far as we knew, mom had no money. In fact, all of us had been chipping in every month to support her for the past dozen years. Most people imagined that my parents accumulated some wealth after serving five terms in the Korean Congress; but against everyone’s belief and speculation, they had no money– thanks to my mom’s strict policy of no bribes and my father’s stubborn values in opposition to the ruling government.
So where did this inheritance come from?
It turns out that there was still some money left over in the bank account we filled with her monthly allowance.
We liked calling it our “inheritance” anyway. Each of us received about $10,000 and we were just so happy. She also kept a US dollar account with the cash we would give her whenever she visited us. It was enough to give her each of 16 grandchildren $300.
After the funeral expenses, there were still about $3,000 left, which we used to take a sister trip to Paris that Fall. Every time we had a meal, we said “This is mom’s treat !” She would have been so happy being with her girls in spirit.
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