Man Clings to Faith After Tragedy Strikes Family Again

ORANGE — Moon Il Lim apologized for feeling empty. But for the second time in less than a year, he has lost a son in a car accident. There is no anger at fate’s cruelty. Not even rage at the driver who police said was drunk and caused the fatal crash.

“To be frank, I don’t have any feelings now,” Lim, a resident of Cerritos, said Thursday. He paused before adding, “That is what’s helping me hang on.”

Lim’s 16-year-old son, Sam Y. Lim, died in a car crash on New Year’s Day in La Palma as he and his mother headed home from a midnight church service at Holy Faith Korean Presbyterian in Cypress.

His mother, Soo Kyung Lim, remained in critical condition Thursday following surgery at UC Irvine Medical Center. Doctors told the family she was bleeding internally and may require a liver transplant if her condition does not vastly improve.

Police said Patrick Ruzzamenti, the alleged driver of the truck that broadsided Lim’s car, was intoxicated and his blood-alcohol level was more than three times the legal limit of 0.08%. Ruzzamenti, 49, of Buena Park, was placed in police custody before being transferred to Long Beach Memorial Hospital, where he was listed in serious condition Thursday.

Sam Lim’s death came 10 months after his 18-year-old brother, Thomas, died in a single-car accident on the Riverside Freeway.

“A parent never gets over the death of a child,” Lim, 46, said Thursday as he, his visiting parents and more than a dozen friends and relatives gathered outside the hospital to await news of his wife’s surgery.

“But now, my second son is gone too,” Lim added as he took out his wallet and flipped to two pictures of his smiling sons, taken when they were in elementary school. “This is terrible. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to feel.”

Moon Il and Soo Kyung Lim have no other children.

Although Lim was calm, his parents, who were visiting from Korea for the holidays, did not hide their pain. “What did [Lim and his wife] do in their lives to be punished like this?” Yul Hee Lim asked as she cried. “Why is this happening to my son twice?”

Moon Il Lim was working in Korea when Thomas died. He said he still has regrets that his last memories with his oldest son were hazy. But he recalled with clarity his last conversation with Sam. On Tuesday night, he called his son from work to apologize for not being able to make it to church with the family.

“I told him I’m sorry I couldn’t go to church with him and I said, ‘Pray for me,’ and he said, ‘I will,’ ” recounted Lim, who is a director of production for FM-Seoul in Los Angeles.

It was Lim’s turn to pray Thursday.

He asked God to help speed up his wife’s recovery. He asked God to watch after his two sons. “At least, [Sam’s] older brother is not lonely now,” he said.

He even asked God to help him forgive his son’s alleged killer. “I want to forgive him. It’s very hard, but I’ll try,” Lim said, his hand shaking as he lit a cigarette. “I have to remember that he did not intend to kill.”

According to friends and family members, Sam, like his older brother, was an outgoing, friendly and courteous teenager. The high school sophomore was a straight-A student and a drummer in the school’s marching band.

He also played drums with an informal band in the youth group at Holy Faith, where his mother is choir conductor.

Jaewon Chang, pastor of the church, said that after the New Year’s service, he shook the youth’s hand as he was leaving. “I told him, ‘Continue to play the drums joyfully,’ ” said Chang, who came to the hospital Thursday to pray with the family.

He was mindful that this was the second time he had to console the Lims over a son’s death.

“But this time, I didn’t know what to say,” the pastor said. “How do you talk about a tragedy that happens twice?”

Times correspondent John Canalis contributed to this story.