A Son's Gratitude

Esther May Jung Chou

February 13, 1926 - February 16, 2021

My mom passed away peacefully Tuesday evening. As many of you know from my recent posts, she had just turned 95 years old days earlier. When I was reminding her of her impending February birthday, she thoughtfully quipped, “maybe I can make it to a hundred.”

My mom probably didn’t feel that comfortable or confident being a mom. But she was truly great.

I remember mom challenging me with playing Hangman and Dots and Boxes when I was a little kid. She’d quiz me about how to spell words, or correct me about pronunciations. When I got sick and missed the first two weeks of Eighth Grade, I made something like a 98 point score on the spelling quiz given during my first 8th Grade English class with Mary Patnaud, even though I’d missed being given the vocabulary material in previous class meetings. I have to think that mom’s “games” contributed to my innate skills.

Mom loved movies. She could name actors on sight - and while I also possess this talent, it no doubt made me to realize that people _made_ movies. 50 years ago at age 11, I shot my first dramatic sequence on our home movie camera, and a lifetime of moving-image production commenced for me.

Mom would say, “Ellsworth was a fun baby.” I would say, “Mom was a fun mom.” She liked word-play, and laughing, and being funny. Even during these past few weeks, which presented many challenges for my mom, I was able to make her laugh a few times. I just realized how much I’m going to miss that.

I worked in our family’s restaurant for much of my childhood. At first, I was the little Chinese kid in a suit that held the door for customers on weekends (non-school nights). Then cashier by probably 9 or 10, a seating host, a bus boy, a dish washer, and a waiter. When I was 19, and had bombed out of two colleges from lack of effort, I was again waiting tables at Jung’s. I was good at it and could cover the weaknesses of other waitstaff. And I made pretty good money from tips. But in my mom’s wisdom, she said, “You should go to work for someone else. You need to know how people that aren’t your family will treat you.” I don’t remember if there was an ultimatum or it was just a suggestion, but I ended up working in two Datsun (which became Nissan during my tenure) dealerships’ parts departments. And what a perfect single experience that was, for I had to serve: 1) retail customers over the public counter; 2) the Service Department - which proved to be an entirely antagonistic relationship; and 3) wholesale garages and body shops via telephone. It was a microcosm of three modes of Working in the Real World. I only did that for two years across two dealers before changes in the family restaurant had my mom calling me to become the cook(!), but those experiences - the only retail, wholesale, and inter-departmental sales relationships I would EVER have, still serve my mental model of how the business world works. My mom was a genius.

(In retrospect, my mom was still living at home and working in her mother’s restaurant when she was 29, so maybe she was trying to save me from that fate. She was still right.)

Some time after my Aunt Elizabeth passed away from cancer and we decided not to continue operating the restaurant without her in 1981, my mom and I had a falling out that precipitated my moving out of the house. We rarely spoke for years. I don’t now remember what the conflict had been.

Nor do I remember when or how the rift was healed. The more time that passed, the better our relationship was.

Mom spent a lot of effort preparing so that I might be spared the grief-filled challenges she faced when addressing the untimely passing of her beloved sister Elizabeth, with whom we were a family for 21 years. Once a year or so while I was visiting her home while in North Carolina, mom would pull out a blue file folder and say, “Now, when the time comes… you know what I mean? All the information you need is in here.” I’d say, “Yeah, I know what you mean.” She did that for 20 years. For me.

In 2007, mom mentioned in passing at the end of a conversation that she’d made a deposit on an apartment in a retirement complex and would sell her house of 34 years. She didn’t want me to torment over the decision. It was just a declaration… a done deal. She’d downsize from a huge house to a modest apartment, and shed the burden of my having to deal with the house when “the time came.” Today while reviewing a worksheet provided by her attorney for my responsibilities to her estate, I recognized that she had divested herself of all “properties” years ago. Streamlined… for me.

A few weeks ago, my mom told me that I was “a good son.” She said it with an unfamiliar gravitas - normally, that kind of remark would have been accompanied by a smirk and an overplayed pat on the cheek, perhaps because it felt a little silly for her to say. I don’t know if she had some sense that her time was short - I certainly didn’t. As I wrote this just now, in my mind’s eye I remembered her telling me that in person - but it was over the phone, 2,400 miles away.

Mom’s final gift to us: even though she had increasingly struggled with confusion over the past few weeks, in our last conversation - perhaps one-minute of a speakerphone held near her by an ER nurse - she said “I love you, Ellsworth.” I said, “I love you, mom.” Joni said, “I love you, Esther,” and mom answered, “I love you.” We didn’t know it would be our last conversation. But it was wonderful.

We love you, Mom.

December 17, 2017

Esther and baby brother Jimmy Jung, c. 1931; this was mom's favorite photo; Jimmy passed away in August 2020

The 6 Jung kids: (Standing) Elizabeth, Johnny, Miriam; (Seated) Jack, Esther, Jimmy

The wedding of York and Mazelle Lee in Kannapolis, NC in 1934. Esther is the 8 year old camera-left of the bride.

When we visited my mother's ancestral village in China in 1997, we weren't sure we were in the right home until my mom spotted this very photograph - of a wedding from Kannapolis, NC in 1934 - on the wall of the house.

With my mom in it.

Edward Tie (a Jung with a "paper name" who came from China at 14 to live with the Jung family), Elizabeth, Jimmy, Esther, Gook Gee Lee Jung (their mother), and Miriam

Jimmy and Esther Jung, c. 1937

Elizabeth and Esther Jung

Miriam and Esther Jung

Esther Mae Jung

Elizabeth, Esther and Miriam Jung

Lillian Ng (daughter of Miriam and the first Jung grandchild) and Esther Jung

Esther Jung and Lillian Ng

c.1953 celebrating the first meeting of new bride to Jack: (Standing) Shake Jung (paternal uncle to Esther), Bob Ng, Jack Jung, Jimmy Jung, Johnny Jung; (seated) Elizabeth Jung, Miriam Jung Ng, Lillian Ng (child), Virginia Lowe Jung, Gook Gee Lee Jung, Esther Jung

the wedding day of I-Kua and Esther Jung Chou, June 15, 1955

Esther and Ellsworth, c. 1961, 1964, 1992, 2008

In the kitchen at Jung's Restaurant's first Greensboro location 1965-66, 2312 E. Bessemer Avenue

Esther Jung Chou and Elizabeth Jung, Norfolk, Virginia

Esther Jung Chou at the Blue Ridge Parkway

Esther Jung Chou

Elizabeth Jung and Esther Jung Chou in the foyer at Jung's Restaurant, 314 N. Church Street, Greensboro, NC

Elizabeth and Esther folding napkins after laundering them

Esther doing paperwork at Jung's Restaurant

Esther at 1101 Dover Road home in Greensboro, c. 1973

Esther c. 1976

Jack, Miriam, John, Esther and Jim Jung, El Cerrito, CA 1983

world travel and Meals On Wheels buddies Betty Kusenberg and Esther Jung Chou

Esther c. 1990

Ellsworth and Esther on the wedding day of Ellsworth to Joni Varner, May 4, 1991

Joni Varner, Becky Varner, Ellsworth Chou, Esther Chou, August 2001

Molly Varner and Esther

Cruising Alaska

Kailua Beach, Oahu, Hawaii

Annual tahini-stirring for falafel meal

I originally captioned this 'Stopping by to say "Bye" on the way back to California' but I've now realized that's mom's purse in her hand with a key card for the doors in her apartment complex. She's about to throw it down to me so I can bring something in the back way...

December 30, 2017

Esther's 90th