Pham family deals with the hole of an unrealized life
BY GREG HARDESTY AND DENISSE SALAZAR / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Published: Feb. 1, 2014 Updated: Feb. 2, 2014 8:21 a.m.
She slipped into dark-wash jeans. She threw a favorite button-down, blue cardigan over a black tank top. She stepped into high, black boots.
Then, late on the night of Jan. 17, Annie Kim Pham went out with one close friend and some acquaintances. For a homebody, a young woman more comfortable cooking for friends or playing board games, it was an unexpected Friday night on the town.
It would be her last.
(snip)
What's less well known about Pham is this:
Her nickname was Xu, after a sweet Vietnamese fruit. Her father, Dung James Pham, 60, can't remember exactly why she got the name, only that he had called her that since she was tiny. More often, she went by Kim.
Her favorite color was green, the color of the purse she grabbed before going out that night.
(snip)
And as she grew, she wrote movingly about that loss (of her mother).
I am in no hurry, and in the presence of the utmost important person to me, the greatest loss and love I have ever known.
I kneel before the graceful, yet powerful aura of my mother.
(snip)
Pham wrote about this period, too, in an essay Pho for Life: A Melting Pot of Thoughts.
My new stepsiblings were an overwhelming presence to me. In particular, I clashed with my oldest stepsister, Katie, who was two years older than me.
She didn't understand me and I didn't understand her and we bickered about even little things, frustratingly, until just about forever.
Katie Nguyen helped dress Pham for her casket viewing, picking a white chiffon blouse, a black blazer and matching slacks, and a gold-cross necklace. She looked her best, peaceful.
After the viewing and before the cremation, Katie removed the necklace. She now wears it around her neck.
Pham, raised Catholic, regularly attended church. Katie Nguyen, who says she and Pham reconciled a few years ago, says her stepsister's death has inspired her to become Catholic too.
(snip)
Her husband, Giang Ngo Khanh, 24, a business major at UCLA, commuted home on weekends.
(snip)
James knew things were grim, but he still had hope, even after a doctor showed him a picture that showed how one side of her skull was cracked. The doctor explained that the injury was inoperable.
He didn't have the strength to be in the room when doctors took Theresa Kim Annie Pham off life support. Before they did, he said his final goodbye.
He feels what any parent would feel. He explains that he works as a security guard.
But I couldn't protect her.
On Jan. 30, Pham's family placed her ashes in a wall at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress.
Pham knew the spot well. Her mother's ashes are there, too, and she's visited often over the years; in moments of stress or pain, and when she simply wanted to be close to a mother she barely had a chance to know.
In her writings, Pham described the spot as her sanctuary.
I kneel. I breathe. I close my eyes. I get lost.
I see my name glimmering in her own. I see her strength in me, and the obstacles are no longer a threat.
Nguyen says she takes some solace that Pham, in death, rests with her mother.
They are together at last.
Much more (five page in-depth article) @ link:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/pham-599941-nguyen-family.html?page=1
(This amazing, in-depth article, is being made available for free to non-subscribers of the OC Register. Although is is 5-pages in length, I'm not sure how long they will leave it for everyone to view before moving to their subscription only service. I have downloaded a copy of the full article, for posterity, and will re-post it to the thread if it ever becomes unavailable, with Moderator approval).
I encourage you all to take the time to read it. Kim wasn't perfect. None of us are; but she was always striving to be better, and she loved with every fiber of her being. That is what I always come away with, after reading about her. Even in death, she is bringing people closer, uniting them, creating friendships, and healing. I believe this will continue on, across ethnicities, in Orange County and beyond. Kim Pham's work is not done here. :rose: