Last month, as if to solidify the year 2020 as a bad year, my big aunt (my mother's only older sister) passed away. She had been battling bile duct cancer for the past few years, trying different experimental treatments provided by a professor at a University Hospital in Korea. The last time I was in Korea, a bit more than a year ago, she had seemed well despite the chemotherapy treatments; she looked less frail than a year before that, and to all accounts the treatments seemed to be working.
Of all the aunts I have, she was the scariest one to me. As the oldest of the six siblings, she was the boss of the family - and she really fit that role. She exhumed confidence and authority, and I remember as a child being overpowered by the sense of austerity being around her. She was a successful businesswoman who started her day care business out of her own apartment, eventually growing it to be a sizable day care center in the city. I don't know much about the day care industry or my aunt's specific day care center, but she was definitely one of the most successful of the siblings in terms of personal growth. As an adult, she managed to go back to school to earn a master's degree (I'm not sure on what), and picked up the harmonica. She was an active soul.
I'll keep my aunt in my memory, and try to tell her tale, or at least what I know of it. It saddens me to realize I know so little about her. And it reminds me to talk to my parents more often- although, the last time I tried to ask either of them about their lives, they laughed me off and shied away from my questions so fast I didn't know how to recover. Damn Asian traditions and awkwardness. But what little stories I can squeeze out of them, I'll try to write- so that I don't forget.