Aunt Mymy, 65, was one-of-a-kind. Her family was her passion.
DALLAS – Early Sunday morning on Lunar New Year, my husband received a text message from his cousin, Fonda Quan.
“Youngest aunt may no longer be with us,” she wrote in part.
Fonda described the limited information the family received from Mymy Nhan’s dance partner. At that hour, news was beginning to develop about the mass shooting at Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, California.
The whole family held on to a stream of hope that Aunt Mymy could have been taken to a local hospital. Fonda and others began making calls to see if they had any patients matching her description. That search was cold.
As a reporter, I have covered many tragedies. I have had to call the coroner’s offices before. I never imagined I would have to do it for my chosen family, let alone a mass shooting. I immediately sent Aunt Mymy’s photos and description to the Los Angeles County Lieutenant Coroner. She was quick to respond. And at 11:48 Pacific time, he sent another email saying the coroner’s office was going out to the scene.
It was a painful stay for my husband’s family. Fonda and her immediate family went to the Family Support Center on Sunday, hoping to find answers. After several hours, they were sent home with no updates.
Then around 8:00 p.m., nearly 22 hours after the mass shooting, a coroner’s investigator called back. I patched immediately in Fonda. That was the call we were anticipating and dreading. The coroner confirmed that Aunt Mymy was killed on Saturday night.
Fonda, my husband and their family want people to know who 65-year-old Aunt Mymy was. She was of Chinese descent and grew up in Vietnam. He immigrated to the United States in 1985.
She loved to dance. Going to Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park and Lai Lai Ballroom and Studio in Alhambra was a weekend routine.
Aunt Mymy was one-of-a-kind. Fonda said that when sanitation workers came to collect the trash weekly, Aunt Mymy would run out to make sure they had a bottle of water. She was kind to all strangers. Her warm smile was contagious. She was everyone’s biggest cheerleader.
Her family was her passion. Mymy’s aunt had no children, but she loved her nieces and nephews as her own. She treated Fonda like a daughter. They lived in the same house where Fonda grew up. She even continued to care for Fonda’s toddler. Aunt Mymy left late for the dance studio on Saturday night to spend extra time with Fonda’s son.
Mymy’s aunt was the main carer of her mother, who died at the end of December. Fonda had to bury her grandmother a few weeks ago, and now she has to do the same for her loving aunt.
Mymy’s aunt was the first victim to be shot before the shooter went on a rampage in the dance hall. We are told that she was leaving a dance class, got in the car with her dance partner, and was pulling the car out when the shooter suddenly appeared, hitting the vehicle several times. The family find comfort that she died almost immediately, taking her last breath in the arms of her dancing partner, who was in the carriage with her.
Remember her name, her face and her story. Bring the victims to the headlines. And spreading kindness, Aunt Mymy’s kind of kindness. That’s what this world needs.
This was her last dance on earth, but Aunt Mymy, we know you dance your way through heaven.
An online fundraising campaign has been set up to help with funeral costs.
