Hyun Jung Grant was one of the eight people dead by a man who attacked a number of spas in the Atlanta area on Tuesday. She was also the single mother of two boys, who are now collecting the pieces.
Randy Park, his eldest son, says he now has the responsibility of planning his mother’s funeral and caring for his younger brother. The 22-year-old started a GoFundMe page with a goal of $ 20,000 in rent, food, bills and other expenses and, in the two days following the publication of the fundraiser, has amassed more than 2.4 million of dollars.
“Frankly, I don’t have time to regret it,” he wrote on the fundraising website. “Only my brother and I are in the United States. The rest of my family is in South Korea and we can’t come.”
Grant was one of six Asian women who were shot dead in Tuesday’s attack. Officials said the suspect claimed the shots 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. Shooting has not been ruled out 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 her mother was not only one of her best friends, but also “the strongest influence on who we are today.”
“Losing her has set me a new goal about how much hatred there is in our world. As much as I want to sadden and process the reality that has disappeared, I have a little brother to take care of and care about resolving as a result of ‘this tragedy,’ he said. “… I will have to find out the living situation of my brother and I over the next few months, possibly a 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 whole life to him,” she told the Associated Press. “It is enough.”
Park told GoFundMe that her top priority is to rest her mother, but that, for legal reasons, she has not been able to get her body. He told the Associated Press that although his mother’s legal last name was Grant, that name was from a marriage a long time ago, and he is now struggling to find documentation that proves he is the real relative.
He said he has to find out the details of this situation, he said, while he had two weeks to find a new and cheaper place to live and his brother.
On Saturday afternoon, Park’s fundraiser had been shared more than 64,000 times, with donations from more than 62,000 people.
“I don’t know how any word you write here will convey to me how grateful I am to have received this great support,” he wrote as an update on the GoFundMe page. “… And to those of you who have given any amount of money. In short, I can’t believe you exist. People I will probably never meet, hear or express my gratitude.”
Park said he had asked friends to help him work out his initial fundraising description, but that his appreciation is “my uncut and unedited words.”
“I will live the rest of my days grateful for what has essentially given my family a second chance,” he said. “I can’t help but feel selfish for all the attention she’s given me … This isn’t a snippet of how I feel. My mom can rest easy knowing I have the support of the world with me. “.