‘I'm going to put my dad on cremation’

January 23, 2015, Friday afternoon.

I don't think I need to worry about my funeral.  The reason is because I have my youngest child, Karis.  Haha

When Karis was younger, she said she would bury her father and mother in the backyard of the house.

And this time she said that she will cremate me. Haha

On a Friday afternoon, I ate Vietnamese noodles with my children (we moved from Wednesday to Friday) and, as usual, went to the Korean market next to the Vietnamese noodle house and gave Dillon and church friend Joon $5 to go into the market and buy some fish-shaped buns.

And while I was waiting in the car with Yeri and Karis, a KakaoTalk message came from my fourth uncle.

The content of the message was that a friend of my uncle died of a disease in his early 60s, and my uncle asked me to translate the Korean words he had written into English for his friend’s unbelieving Vietnamese wife.

So, after seeing the message, I briefly told my beloved daughters Yeri and Karis about the message, and then told them that my uncle's friend also did cremation (Actually, I already told them that our church Grandma Bun-nam Choi was put on cremation after passing away a while ago...).

Then, the youngest daughter Karis, who was listening to that, said that she would put me on cremation.  Haha.

So I told her that I had to make a will (I mean, it's not something you decide to do this way or that, it's what this dad should do … Haha).  After hearing that, Karis asked me what I wanted to do.

 So I said to Karis, ‘I don’t really care whether you put me in the grave or cremation.

Then Karis said that she would cremate me.  Haha.  So I asked her why she wanted to cremate me.

She said that the reason was because she didn’t like having bugs on my body when I was under the ground (in the grave).  Haha (Perhaps from Karis’ point of view, she didn't even want to imagine a bug moving on the corpse of her beloved father).

After a moment's silence, I told Yeri and Karis that even though it would be sad if this daddy and mommy died,

they should be happy.  Then Yeri, who was sitting next to Karis, asked how she could be happy.

Then I remembered the words of Philippians 1:22-24 and told Yeri that we wanted more to leave this world

and be with the Lord whom we missed.  

So I told her that since this daddy and mommy will live with the Lord forever in heaven

where we want to go when we die, she should rejoice.

Towards the end of the conversation, Dillon and Joon came out of the Korean market and Joon show the number “6” with his finger.  That means they paid $5 and got 6 fish-shaped buns (even though I told them to try and get 7 of them lol).  Even if I have to die, I want to eat the fish-shaped buns deliciously... Haha.