DULUTH, Georgia – Randy Park, 22, is waiting for the police to give him his mother’s body. Then he will plan her funeral and bury her.
Park has been the head of his family’s household since her death. He must see that he and his younger brother are looked after. That they have a home. Food to eat.
Then his mother was killed and became national newsThere was no time to mourn. There’s only what’s next.
Park’s mother, Hyun Jung Grant or 현정, 51, was killed Tuesday if a shooter attacked three Asian spas in the Atlanta area kill eight and wound one. Six of the Asian women were the victims.
Grant was a single mom from Park and his 21 year old brother, Eric Park, who worked long hours at the Gold Spa. This job meant that she had to be away from home for days or weeks.
When she was with her sons, she always made time for food, music, and dancing. You live in Duluth, a town called Koreatown, Georgia, which has a variety of Korean-owned businesses and restaurants.
None of the restaurants in Park were close to his mother’s home cooked meals. His favorite dish was a Korean stew called 김치 찌개 or Kimchi Jjigae.
“I would eat three bowls of it every day. Apparently it’s an unhealthy amount, ”said Park. “Everyone says that about their mother’s cooking. I don’t think I’ll ever have better kimchi jjigae anywhere else. Not even in Korea. “
Park said his mother was a teenager at heart. She loved hanging out with friends, going dancing, listening to Dutch DJ Tiësto and singing karaoke. She was a great singer, he said.
“She’s devoted her whole life to upbringing and even then she found time to have fun with her friends,” he said.
To Park, Grant was more than just a “mother”. She was one of his best friends. He was his mother’s son, he said, from his face to his personality, filled with kindness and understanding.
“I could say whatever word comes into my head for her, but it doesn’t include a fraction of what she meant to us,” he said. “I cannot articulate or express in any way what it was or what it meant to us.”
Park learned of his mother’s death on Tuesday shortly after the shooting. He grabbed his brother and drove the 30 minutes to Gold Spa. He had never seen where she worked.
“I just wanted to go there first hand and see and hear everything that happened,” he said.
Park said his mother shielded her sons from work for most of their lives. Grant first told them that she was working with friends at a makeup salon before Park found out and confronted them. He said he did not ask for details because he considered it an invasion of privacy.
Park said he said to her, “I have no problem with what you do or what you would do for us, as long as it is done with good intentions. Then nothing else matters.”
Hyun Jung Grant was one of eight dead, including Soon C. Park, Suncha Kim, Daoyou Feng, Yong A. Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels and Xiaojie Tan.
Tan was a business owner and would have turned 50 this week. Yaun was the mother of a 13 year old son and an 8 month old daughter.
ON GoFundMe for Park and his brother raised more than $ 1.26 million on Saturday to cover rent and other monthly bills. “Losing them has put me a new lens on the amount of hatred that exists in our world,” he wrote in the Post.
Park said he has found it difficult to say thanks for the help his family has received since the shootings. On his GoFundMe he wrote: “To be very clear, I can’t believe you exist. People I will probably never meet, hear or thank. This is just a change in my life. Not me even think I have a good understanding of how much that is. ”
Park said his main focus now is on laying his mother to rest. The authorities have not yet released her body due to legal complications. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, his aunt cannot come and help in Korea.
“”I won’t do anything else until the whole process is complete, “he said.” Until then, I can’t work on anything efficiently. “
Park said he was overwhelmed by the spotlight: reporters knocked on his door, community members called and sent text messages, phone messages from someone who claimed President Joe Biden wanted to speak to him.
His shy mother, he said, would be ashamed of the attention.
