Hyun Jung Grant was one of eight dead people by a man who attacked a series of spas in the Atlanta area on Tuesday. She was also a single mother to two boys, who are now putting the pieces together.
Randy Park, his eldest son, says he now has a responsibility to plan his mother’s funeral and care for his younger brother. The 22-year-old started a GoFundMe page with a goal of $ 20,000 for rent, food, bills and other expenses and, in the two days since fundraising was launched, has accumulated more than $ 2.4 million.
“Frankly, I don’t have time to regret it,” he wrote on the fundraising website. “It is just me and my brother in the United States. The rest of my family is in South Korea and cannot come.”
Grant was among six Asian women who were shot and killed in Tuesday’s attack. Authorities said the suspect claimed the shootings were not racially motivated and saw the spas as a temptation he wanted to eliminate.
The suspect, Robert Aaron Long, has been charged with eight counts of murder. The shootings were not dismissed as a hate crime.
The other victims are Delaina Ashley Yaun, Yong Ae Yue, Suncha Kim, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Soon Chung Park and Paul Andre Michels.
Park said his mother was not only one of his best friends, but also “the biggest influence on who we are today”.
“Losing her put a new lens in my eyes on the amount of hatred that exists in our world. As much as I want to regret and process the reality that she is gone, I have a younger brother to take care of and resolve issues as a result. of this tragedy, “he said. “… I will need to find out the life situation of my brother and me in the coming months, possibly year.”
In an interview with the Associated Press, Park said his mother always found a way to enjoy life, even though she worked “almost every day”.
“She loved me and my brother enough to work for us, to dedicate her entire life,” he told the Associated Press. “That’s enough.”
Park said on GoFundMe that his highest priority is to put his mother to rest, but that, for legal reasons, he was unable to obtain her body. He told the Associated Press that, although his mother’s legal surname was Grant, that name was from a marriage a long time ago, and now he is struggling to find paperwork showing that he is the closest real relative.
He said he needs to find out the details of this situation, he said, while he has two weeks to find a new and cheaper place for him and his brother to live.
On Saturday afternoon, Park’s fundraiser was shared more than 64,000 times, with donations from more than 62,000 people.
“I don’t know how a word I write here will convey how grateful and blessed I am to receive so much support,” he wrote as an update on the GoFundMe page. “… And for those of you who donated any amount of money. To be frank, I can’t believe you exist. People I will probably never meet, hear or express my thanks to.”
Park said he asked friends to help him make his initial fundraising description, but that his thanks are “my words uncut and unedited.”
“I will live the rest of my days grateful for what essentially gave my family a second chance,” he said. “I can’t help feeling selfish for all the attention it has attracted … It does not even represent a fragment of how I feel. My mother can rest easy knowing that I have the support of the world with me.”