Dear Jimmy and Loan's family,

Please receive our belated hearty condolence for Loan's sudden passing during our last 1 month trip to Vietnam.
 
We are Hồng Duyên (H.D.) one of Loan's classmate in Regina Mundi High School in Saigon; and Steven Heller, H.D's thirty years life partner. We both have met Loan and get to know her better to become her friends since her Class of 1969 first High School Reunion in Danville, California in summer 2009. Over the last 10 years, we had many happy similar Reunions with Loan and classmate friends.
  
Loan first introduced us to Jimmy, her husband that she deeply loved and admired, when they invited us to their home in Santa Ana on her Birthday in 2009. We all spent a very good time at their home and dining out . As Loan loved Poetry, H.D.  wrote her a Birthday poem to include it with her Birthday gift. In August 2010,
when Jimmy went to work out of state, we invited Loan to spend a week at our home in Reno, and to show her around in South Lake Tahoe. A few years later, the four of us met again in San Francisco. We had a lovely drive in the greater Bay Area where Loan insisted to visit the City of Oakland and Lake Berryessa in Vacaville. We also spent a joyful evening in the Berkeley Marina. Loan is a warm loving friend with an incredible sense of humor, fun story telling skills and definitely an excellent driver!

Loan dearly loved her husband and her relatives, for whom she spent the whole day shopping for their gifts in the Saigon market with H.D., during one of her last trips to Vietnam. By the end of that day, Loan was so loaded with many full gift bags that H.D. had to offer to help her carry by accompanying her, by taking the bus with her from "Tự Do" Street to Phú Mỹ Hưng, where she stayed with her big brother's family. 
        The last 2 times we saw Loan were with our R.M. friends in Las Vegas, NV and in Fountain Valley, CA. in summer 2016. By including Loan's Birthday picture we celebrate Loan's eternal life.

As one of Loan's classmates who shared her adolescence and later  reconnected with her in adulthood, I can say that we'll never forget her contagiously uplifting laugh, her lust for life, and her generosity towards family and friends.  She used to send us pictures of elaborate traditional family meals that reflect the finest in Vietnamese cuisine.  She proudly showed off the orchids and fruit trees in her garden,  invariably making us envious of her magical green thumb, and without forgetting to comment like a pro on the taste  and abundance of her fruits, she also made us salivate!
Flowers, flowers, flowers, they always made her happy. She always went out hunting for the best and most exotic ones, especially on the occasion of Tết, which unfortunately this year will come without her touch.  And every year, she regaled us with photos of the gigantic bouquet of roses that Jim, her husband and love of her life, sent her for Valentine's Day. 
Loan was also an avid reader and sharer of Eastern philosophy, literature, and the arts.  She prodded our brains with brief cryptic verses of Chinese poetry that oozed metaphysical (and sent us to research). She stirred our hearts with romantic prose and songs from famous writers and composers. One of her favorite songs was Phoi Pha by Trinh Cong Son, about life ephemeral but worth living and the beauty of faded memories as legacy.  In her dining room hung a large painting of cherry blossoms that she had fallen in love with at first sight, on a chance encounter with a Japanese painter in a park exhibit.  That was Loan,  always living in the moment, and now "sending back every joyful tiding to those still waiting" (..."Tra lai tung tin vui. Cho nhan gian cho doi" in "Phoi Pha").

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Fairhaven Memorial Park & Mortuary

Loan Crawford

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OBITUARIO

Loan Phuong Crawford

17 octubre, 1950 – 6 diciembre, 2019

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Loan Phuong Crawford

17 octubre, 1950 – 6 diciembre, 2019

Fairhaven Memorial Park & Mortuary

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