I received a package from my aunt in London on Saturday, inside was a stack of letters my mom had written to her since our immigration to the United States. I read the letters voraciously throughout the weekend and finished reading them all by Sunday evening. I read them in the order that my aunt sent them in but they were not in chronological order. I didn't realize until I read the letters that my mom had only lived in the U.S. for nine years, most of those years were filled with financial and linguistic difficulty. I was glad to know that Scott and I amused my mom from time to time and made her laugh.

Fittingly, the last letter I read was the letter she wrote to my aunt right after her mom, my grandmother, passed away in Korea and I had a good cry. I remember the day that my mom received the phone call from Korea with the news of my grandmother's passing. We were about to leave the house in the morning for school and work and had just put on our shoes when the phone rang. My mom dropped to the carpeted floor, stared out into space, and then began to sob loudly after the initial shock had passed. Apparently my mom had been worried about my grandmother for a long time ever since we found out that she had cancer. We visited her in Korea that year to spend time with grandma. All of my mom's siblings returned to Korea from all over the world. It was the last time her family was all together. In the letter she said that the pastor compared our beloved's passing to the leaving of a daughter from the family when she is given away in marriage (that's the korean view on marriage) because we are sad that they are gone but also happy for their good fortune. In the case of a Christian's death, being with our Heavenly Father. She also gave the verses the pastor used in my grandma's memorial sermon to my aunt, Psalm 116:15 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15.