02-09-2025, 10:30 PM
Mildred Lau was the last of my father's siblings. She turned 100 last year. She was my favorite aunt, a good Christian Hawaiian wahine.
Her son Bruce is one of my closest cousins, the one who worked in stop-motion animation and was a name sculptor of Disney figurines like the kind you used to get at Hallmark stores - he went on signing tours for that but that part of his career died with CGI movies (once you have the 3D specs for a character, it's easy to 3D print it). He just texted me to let me know that she died this afternoon.
When my mom got sick last month, I texted him and he replied that his mom was in hospice too, after a fall around thanksgiving that fractured her spine.
When we took Tara to Hawaii for the first time, Mildred & Bruce took us all over Oahu. We went to the Polynesian center (where Tara bumped into a classmate by coincidence), the Japanese temple, and some Chinese temple where our family's ancestral tablets are. She was always so sweet and welcoming. I have nothing but good memories of her.
Her son Bruce is one of my closest cousins, the one who worked in stop-motion animation and was a name sculptor of Disney figurines like the kind you used to get at Hallmark stores - he went on signing tours for that but that part of his career died with CGI movies (once you have the 3D specs for a character, it's easy to 3D print it). He just texted me to let me know that she died this afternoon.
When my mom got sick last month, I texted him and he replied that his mom was in hospice too, after a fall around thanksgiving that fractured her spine.
When we took Tara to Hawaii for the first time, Mildred & Bruce took us all over Oahu. We went to the Polynesian center (where Tara bumped into a classmate by coincidence), the Japanese temple, and some Chinese temple where our family's ancestral tablets are. She was always so sweet and welcoming. I have nothing but good memories of her.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse