Ken's speech

My name is Ken Chee. I am Sandra’s son, and the middle child.

First, I’d like to recognize everyone who came out today. Thank you for showing your love and support, and it is comforting for us to see how many lives our mother touched.

I have spent the last week telling people how my mom died. Now I will tell you how she lived.

Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture, said “We don’t beat the reaper by living longer; we beat the reaper by living well, and by living fully.” That’s how my Mom lived. She was a loving mother, wife, daughter, grandmother, sister, and friend.
She lived well. Seriously – she worked out every day, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and ate her vegetables. On a side note – part of the reason she worked out every day (and my dad does too) – was that their home was recently undergoing an extensive remodel. That required moving things around, and finding places for storage – including using the bathtub and shower. If my parents wanted to shower, they had to go to the gym. How’s that for an incentive to work out?

As for living fully, she spent the last 14 days of her life on a cruise ship surrounded by people she loved – her husband of 37 years, and close friends Mr. and Mrs. Baron. She spent her final days doing what she loved – cruising aboard a beautiful ship, touring foreign countries, shopping for souvenirs, dancing with her husband, and her favorite - sampling the dessert menu (the ultimate reward for daily exercise).

Full of unconditional love and support, Mom showered the children with enough praise that we felt that we could do anything, but not so much praise that we would do nothing. She challenged me to excel at everything – from sports (requiring me to play a varsity sport in high school), to music (I think she wanted me to be in the WCI jazz band more than I did), to Boy Scouts (I never made it to Eagle Scout, but I did get pretty good at playing with fire), to academics (where a B just wasn’t good enough). I’m sure she is proud of all of us, and we are proud of her. I couldn’t have asked for a better mother.

Many of you know that I was a passionate swimmer growing up. What you may not know is that I almost quit swimming when I was eleven. I was discouraged because my times were not improving, and Emilyn was actually faster than I was. But my mom wouldn’t let me quit. It wasn’t that she forbade me to quit swimming; she told me that she expected me to play a varsity sport in high school – and if I wasn’t going to swim, what sport was I going to play? When I look back, I can only admire how she handled that situation. I continued to swim, and was secretly pleased when I was again faster than my little sister.

Mom never knew that she was sick (and neither did we). Because of that, she never lived her life as if she were sick. She was employed full-time, although was constantly running out of vacation days, and she took each and every one. Whether it was to cruise someplace new, or to visit her beloved grandkids in San Diego, she loved to get away.

My mother loved to dance. My father was a reluctant partner, until my mom signed them up for a weekly ballroom dance class at DVC. After several semesters, their skills progressed to the point where they were often the first ones to get on the dance floor. That was another reason my mom loved cruising – to show off her newfound dance moves. Being the loving, caring, and sometimes too concerned mother of a 30-year-old single son, my mom was always regaling me with tales of all the women that were in her dance class. I never made it out to class – part of me feared that the women were all my parents’ age. The other part of me was skeptical if I should let my mom be involved in my dating life. Actually, I can just blame my two left feet and a fear of embarrassing myself. But she need not worry, as I was no longer single when she passed.

I will miss our weekly Sunday night dinners. I would be lying if I denied that I reveled in the fact that I was her only bay area child. After 18 years of sharing and compromising, finally I could ask for special dishes for meals; I could choose which restaurant we went to, and I could be the one who got to sit next to Mom.
Mom, we love you, and you will be dearly missed.