I think my favorite memory was when Chindy (our nickname for Cindy) first introduced me to him. Up 'til then he was just a wacky nickname ("Manmeat") that I'd concocted, and the subject of Chindy's giddy little stories. So after all those months, it was good to finally meet the guy in person.

My first thought was "I thought Chindy said he was Korean? Because this dude looks Chinese."

And my second thought was "Wow, Manmeat is cool."

Because Chindy's face was beaming the whole time - I mean, she would not stop smiling. And I remember talking about it with Ted and Gene. And I remember we all agreed we'd never seen her that happy before. So we came to the obvious conclusion that he really must be some guy, that Steven, to put a smile like that on Chindy's face.

=======

From a blog kept by Ed Mun.

Thursday, April 10th, 2003
Time: 1:05 am.
Two friends moved within a block or two of me last month. One moved to raise a new family, and the other moved to try to save his own life. This past weekend I visited both.
-------
Saturday afternoon I walked up the street, made a left, and found myself at Steven’s place. I met him through his girlfriend Cindy, who’s been a good friend of mine for a long time.

Back in January I briefly mentioned an incident where Steven kept passing out, discovering later he’d lost about 20% of his blood via internal bleeding. The cause was a hole in his small intestines. They removed that section during surgery and did some tests to figure out what caused it. And the news was something awful.

Steven was told by the doctors that he had a form of cancer called non-Hodgkins lymphoma. For reasons unknown, it’s found more often in the U.S. and Canada than anywhere else in the world. Strikes mostly males, even young ones without a family history of cancer like Steven.

He needed to move to a place that was close to the UCLA Medical Center: for cancer patients, going to the hospital becomes a full-time job. And that’s how Steven became my neighbor. Cindy opened the door and led me into the living room where Steven was slumped on the couch, forty pounds lighter. Something about him seemed sadly familiar. I recognized the shaved scalp with a few ragged patches of fuzz still trying to grow in earnest.

Somewhere around the second or third round of chemo, your hair starts falling out in chunks. It gets pretty darn annoying so you end up just shaving it all off. I remember having to use dog grooming clippers to shave my baby sister’s head while she stood in the bathtub. I remember getting her a lot of hats.

We talked for a couple of hours, until Steven’s meager strength tapped out and he had to rest. He mentioned that what he actually had was T-cell lymphoma, a rare lymphoma that’s extremely aggressive and difficult to cure. And even if you’re lucky enough to get cured, the recurrence rate is staggering: there’s a 75% of it coming back.

But the support he’s had from his loved ones has been extraordinary. I’ve been a firm believer in the healing power of such a thing. His dad flies in every week from Dallas to take care of him. His friends constantly visit him in droves from the Bay Area. And throughout it all, there’s Cindy. When she’s not at work, she’s always at his side, doing anything, everything she possibly can, and more. Guardian angels don’t do this much.

I’m usually guilty of being on the skeptical side when it comes to human beings. And so I suppose I really needed to witness the things I witnessed that Saturday afternoon. To remind myself that unconditional love actually exists, even in West LA.

One of these days, you know, when Steven gets better, and Cindy’s not in the same room - one of these days I’m going to grab that guy by his shoulders and tell him what a lucky bastard he is.

=======

Friday, April 18th, 2003
Time: 4:28 pm.
There was a voice message on my cell phone this morning when I got up. Even before I heard the message, I had that feeling again.

It was the same feeling I had two days ago when Cindy didn’t return my call, when I’d asked how Steven was doing. It was the same feeling I had last night when I sent her an email, asking the same question.

Steven passed away yesterday. Just two months after his 30th birthday. Two months after he was diagnosed with T-cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

While driving to work, the emotions swam through me. I’d assumed he’d pull through. That he’d beat it. It was what I’d told Cindy on the phone in our last conversation, after Steven had been rushed to the ICU. He was experiencing difficulty breathing. But his condition stabilized, and they were planning to do a biopsy the following day. I told Cindy that Steven was going to survive, because he had so many people who were there for him. That was Monday night.

I wondered why I didn’t see him more often. Like I did for my baby sister.

When I got to the office, I called and left another message for Cindy. There really wasn’t much I could say.

“He knew.” I said. “He knew how many people loved and cared about him.”

“He knew you loved him very much.”

=======

Friday, April 25th, 2003
Time: 3:38 pm.
In a few hours I’ll be boarding a plane for Dallas to attend Steven’s funeral. One week after he passed away in a UCLA hospital room.

He’d fallen unconscious and was suffering multi-organ failure. After a futile attempt to save him with one last dose of chemo, the doctors told his parents that that their only child was beyond saving. It was around 10pm Thursday, and his parents, being devout Christians, gave the hospital permission to remove the respirator at midnight. It would be Good Friday.

After the respirator was removed, and the morphine was injected, they took turns saying good-bye. When it was Steven’s father's turn, he leaned over and gently patted his son’s hand.
“You go,” he said. “And daddy will follow.”

A handful of us kept Cindy company over the weekend. Hugs and comforting words help a little, but mostly you just listen. The words flowed out as easily as her tears. Most of them were her memories of Steven. Sad memories. Happy memories. Funny memories.

Memories were now all she had: whether they were stories or his possessions that filled his one bedroom apartment. At one point she found a strand of his hair, and cradled it in the palm of her hand as if it might contain a small trace of his soul.

The guy did have a lot of stuff. Boxes filled with climbing gear, fishing gear, camping gear. If there was a gear for something, Steven basically had it. Just helped to show that the guy had a passion for living. But death doesn’t care who it takes, or how badly good people suffer because of it.

Grief is the one emotion that can kill a person. It took my grandmother from us not long after it took my grandfather from her. The thing about loving someone is that there may come a time when that person is taken from you. And the pain will grab your world by its very seams and tear it all down.

Many years ago, before she even met Steven, Cindy had a discussion with a coworker about this. She’d just read a book called “My Sergei” - three times in fact - about a Russian figure skating couple, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov. They’d fallen in love early, and were inseparable ever since. Then during practice, Sergei suddenly collapsed from a heart attack and died. He was 28.

The question Cindy’s coworker posed to her was this: Would you rather find your soul mate and risk having him taken from you prematurely, or would you rather spare yourself and never find your soul mate at all? Without hesitation, Cindy said finding your soul mate was worth the risk.

She repeated this story for us Saturday night with a weak smile on her face. In her hands she was tightly clutching a pair of his socks.

And there wasn’t a thing any of us could say.

=======

Monday, April 28th, 2003
Subject: People.
Time: 11:44 pm.
Dallas covers a lot of prairie space, spread thin like butter on hard toast. You can spend a lifetime here, methinks, and never parallel park once.

The plan for me was to check into the hotel around midnight and then crash ‘til the morning funeral. But Rog was sharing the suite with me and Geney Boy. And since we haven’t seen the guy in almost a month, we caught up. Friday was the last day of his promotional duties for “Better Luck,” which means no more flying to a different time zone each day and getting mobbed by lustful Asian Studies majors.

But Rog happens to be one of those people who crave massive amounts of attention - hence his choice of profession - and yet abhor it at the same time. So he actually didn’t relish his recent taste of minor celebrity: the two-hour autograph signing sessions, the cooing club chicks with the ample boobage (damn you, Rog!), the friends posting half-naked photos of him on their livejournal.

But I already knew that about the guy. What I didn’t know is that he’s a frigid little bastard. Dude put three sweaters on before going to bed. 4% body fat is so overrated I tell you - so go ahead and eat that lard pudding.

-------

Steven’s was the fourth funeral I’ve been to in the past five years, and probably the most emotional. I suppose that’s to be expected of any funeral when the person died too soon and without warning. But he truly was a good person, that guy. And that made the anguish even more raw for those who deeply cared about him.

When it was finally Cindy’s turn to speak, the collective sorrow inside the chapel almost burst.

Because when a person dies too soon and without warning, the people who loved him desperately try find to some meaning in his death. And no matter how hard they try to convince themselves, deep down inside they can’t escape that stench of meaninglessness, of feeling horribly cheated. And when it’s someone you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with, it’s as if God came down and stole all your happiness from you. Simply because he could.

-------

When we got back to LA later that day, Rog asked me what I got out of it all.
I told him, “People.”

Back in high school, while attempting to fill out my Princeton application, I realized that life was too short and I had to make the most of it. It’s not only a cliché but a soft drink commercial. Yet nevertheless it’s true.

So I came to the conclusion that the key to true happiness wasn’t about money and material possessions, but life experiences. Things you can tell your grandkids about, while a hot Icelandic nurse spoon-fed you creamed corn.

And to that end I’d been seeking experiences. I forsook a highly lucrative career for a creative one. I traveled as much as I possibly could. I tried to go out as much as my biological clock and liver would let me. I strove to explore strange new worlds and seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no Grey Goose-guzzling Korean boy had gone before.

But since my baby sister’s cancer and now Steven’s death, I’ve realized that I was wrong. More than experiences, the key to happiness is people. Not just your family. But your friends as well. And I don’t mean people who are fun to party with or who are pretty and witty and bright. But people who’ll be there for you no matter what, just as you'll be there for them. People who care about you as you do about them. The very people whom I always end up taking for granted.

Lord knows where I go from here. As I told Rog right afterward, as soon as all the emotions fade away, I could go back to my old, cynical self again.

Because harder than becoming a rich man, a talented man or a powerful man, is becoming a good man.

But I’ll do my best. For Steven’s sake.

=======

Friday, June 6th, 2003
Time: 12:24 am.
Rog and I were having drinks at a tiny karaoke bar with a group of friends. He and I sat there and talked for a while about how Steven’s death affected us. As it turned out, it impacted him virtually the same way it did with me.

Rog thought the ensuing changes in his life’s perspective made him happier than he was a year ago. He asked if it was the same for me. I replied no.

Life was simpler on June 2002, and easier. Ignorance, after all, is bliss. Now, the ignorance is all but gone and I’m grateful for that. But, as I wrote a month ago, the road to becoming a better human being is a bitch, and Lord knows if it ends up kicking my weak ass.

-------

Yesterday I walked over to the mailbox after getting home from work and found a thick manila envelope inside. It was from Steven’s parents. A book, with a letter attached.

The letter basically said that the sole comforting thought for Steven’s parents was that he “found God” in the weeks before he passed away. Because although his mom was deeply religious, Steven was agnostic for most of his life until the last moment. The letter went on to say that it was their wish that Steven’s friends didn’t wait ‘til the last moment to find God, which is why they sent every single one of us a copy of a book. It was titled “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”

-------

Happiness is fleeting. The euphoria of falling in love, finding your dream job, buying a nice pair of shoes … it fades quickly, like the cheap gum they give you after dinner at a Korean restaurant. But you can’t say the same about unhappiness. The pain tends to stick around for a very long time.

I know for Steven’s parents the sorrow will be there for the rest of their lives. They sent me that book, hoping it would somehow help spark a change in my life. Because finding hope in his friends' salvations is one way to numb the sadness. Because making the death of their only child less meaningless helps render the pain more bearable.

I scanned the back of the book and found out it was about unconditional love. Honestly speaking, I don’t know if I’ll ever read more than that. But I do plan to let them know that their son changed my life for the better. I'm just not going to tell them it happened before they even mailed the book.

-Ed Mun

previous | next