Summary
The thirteenth chapter details the decline of Zauner's mother. Two days after Kye's departure, she begins to experience shooting pain and cries out. In an attempt to numb the pain, Zauner and her father give her strong doses of the painkillers prescribed by her doctors. She becomes almost entirely unconscious in this time and Zauner and her father wait agonizingly as she is dying. Zauner says that her father expected to die first because of his reckless behavior over the years, and was totally unprepared for this.
Zauner sobs into her mother's bed, repeating the words her mother had said when Halmuni, her grandmother, had died. Peter flies in, and shortly after, Zauner's mother dies. They stay with the body before calling anyone. Her father gives Zauner her mother's wedding ring, saying she wanted her to have it, which she finds both moving and upsetting. They dress her mother's body, as she is about to be cremated. She asks Peter to drive her to a local apple orchard. She remembers visiting it as a child as she feeds some goats.
Zauner makes the funeral arrangements and chooses a headstone. She struggles to write a eulogy, and has trouble finding the right words for how she felt about her mother. Zauner feels uncomfortable with the religious tone of the ceremony, as she has not been to church in many years, nor had her mother. At the burial, they discover there is a typo on the headstone, which reads "loving" not "lovely," as Zauner had specified. She goes to a restaurant with close friends and family after and cries on the way home, as she feels depleted by the day.
Zauner cooks for her relatives, Seong Young and Nami, happy to feel that she has a useful task to complete. After her father takes Seong Young and Nami to the airport to fly back to Korea, Zauner discovers that her mother's old art teacher left a note for her on the porch. Zauner is affected by the kind words in the note and looks through her mother's art supplies and sketchbook, leafing through various drawings and paintings. She ends the chapter by saying her mother once said to her that she had "never met someone like her." She is touched by this comment and spends a great deal of time trying to better understand it.
Zauner and her father begin the difficult process of cleaning out the house, selling and throwing various things away. After this, they go on a trip together to Vietnam. They both struggle to enjoy themselves, as Zauner is still deep in her grief. This also exacerbates tension between them, as she begins to feel more and more that her father is essentially unreliable.
This tension comes to a head one night at a restaurant when they have an argument after her father sends her plate back to the kitchen. He says she has always been difficult and that her mother said so for many years. Then she says her mother said plenty of unkind things about him too. Zauner sneaks away to a karaoke bar and sings some songs with some encouragement from a stranger. She finds momentary comfort as the stranger sings a Celine Dion song her mother was fond of.
After they return from Vietnam, Zauner's father is in a car accident after driving drunk. He faces no legal consequences, only injuries, but Zauner is extremely upset by his behavior. She goes through her mother's things and makes herself jatjuk, a Korean porridge, which makes her feel full for the first time in weeks. Following this moment of respite, she researches the recipe and learns more about the dish.
Analysis
This section of the book deals directly with grief, as it captures the immediate aftermath of the death of Zauner's mother. Zauner states multiple times that she struggles to have an appropriate response to this loss. When writing her mother's eulogy, she says her words feel clunky and wrong, as she senses they do not actually capture who her mother was. Similarly, she finds the tone of the funeral strange, as it is a very religious ceremony but her mother rarely went to church. She is also upset by a misprint on her mother's headstone, which reads "loving" instead of "lovely." All of these moments show the way in which these formal events do not give her much closure or peace.
The chapter describing Zauner's trip to Vietnam with her father gives a sharply observed portrait of the problems in their relationship. Zauner notes that while taking care of her mother, she began to see that her father was essentially unreliable. Zauner reaches a breaking point after a heated argument at a restaurant, when she almost reveals that she knows about his affairs. Likewise, when her father gets in a car accident after driving drunk, she sees that if she stays in Eugene she will have to take care of him, as he is constantly engaging in reckless behavior. As suggested throughout the book, his failure to support Zauner during this difficult period is the ultimate cause of their estrangement.
Music also plays an important role in this section of the book, as Zauner returns to her memory of singing Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." After her disagreement with her father, she wanders around the area near the restaurant and comes to a karaoke bar. She goes inside and begins talking to a stranger, who encourages her to sing. After Zauner completes her song, the stranger sings "My Heart Will Go On," which reminds Zauner of how she and her mother used to sing it in the car as a duet. While she and this stranger don't end up keeping in touch, she is appreciative of the momentary peace this part of the night gave her. Music gives Zauner access to this memory and some passing comfort.
Food is another major theme in these chapters. After the funeral and the Vietnam trip, Zauner describes how she prepares a Korean porridge called jatjuk. She says that this dish makes her feel full and comforted in a way she has not been in weeks. The food reminds Zauner of her culture while also giving a feeling of closure that nothing else previously had. As the book emphasizes repeatedly, food provides Zauner with a link to her past and consoles her.
This part of the book is its emotional climax, as Zauner's mother dies and her relationship with her father begins to fall apart. In the face of these tremendous struggles, Zauner turns to both music and food as a means of coping. The book revisits its main ideas, while elaborating on the connection between Zauner's grieving process and her love of Korean food.
