Chongmi meets Zauner's American father at the Seoul hotel where she works; they marry and eventually settle in Oregon.

Halmoni passes away, and Zauner watches her mother grieve in a way she cannot yet understand.

Zauner opens for musician Maria Taylor at the WOW Hall in Eugene, marking the real beginning of her performance career.

After a Korean restaurant lunch, Chongmi tells Zauner to go live like a starving musician if that is what she wants.

Chongmi calls Zauner in New York to reveal that doctors have found a cancerous tumor in her body.

Zauner quits her Philadelphia jobs and moves back to Eugene to take care of her mother despite Chongmi's protests.

Chongmi grows severely nauseated on the way to a doctor's appointment and is rushed to the emergency room.

Chongmi's tumor does not shrink after chemotherapy, and she decides to stop treatment rather than continue suffering.

Chongmi becomes feverish in Seoul and is hospitalized for several weeks, forcing the family to cancel their planned Jeju trip.

Zauner calls Peter from outside the Seoul hospital and refuses to accept anything but an immediate agreement to get married.

The wedding is held in the family backyard; Chongmi slow-dances with Peter and then leaves the party early from exhaustion.

Chongmi passes away while Zauner and Peter are in bed; Zauner's father removes Chongmi's ring and places it on Zauner's hand.

The headstone the family ordered reads "LOVING" instead of "LOVELY," the specific word Zauner chose to honor her mother.

After returning from Vietnam, Zauner receives a call that her father has crashed his car while drunk.

Japanese Breakfast plays its first Seoul show to a crowd of 400, with a candid photo of Chongmi on the album cover.

The main plot follows Michelle Zauner from her parents' meeting in Seoul through Chongmi's cancer diagnosis, treatment, and death. Zauner's early music career and ongoing conflict with her perfectionist mother establish the fractured but deeply loving relationship at the memoir's heart. Chongmi's diagnosis forces Zauner to abandon her Philadelphia life and return to Eugene, where she watches her mother's health rapidly deteriorate. A disastrous family trip to Seoul accelerates the crisis, leading Zauner to insist on an immediate wedding so her mother can witness it. After Chongmi's death, Zauner navigates grief, a broken relationship with her father, and the slow emergence of her debut album as an act of tribute. The memoir closes on her band's first Seoul show, with Chongmi's face on the album cover and her spirit present throughout.

The headline events of Zauner's life and her mother's illness and death.

During childhood summers in Seoul, Halmoni leads nightly hwatu card games while Zauner serves as the group's designated drink runner.

A film director approaches young Zauner in Seoul about her talents, but Chongmi immediately shuts the opportunity down.

Seeing Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs perform helps Zauner realize her own potential as a half-Korean artist.

A physical altercation at home ends with Chongmi revealing she had an abortion because she feared having another child like Zauner.

Peter impresses Chongmi at a Korean restaurant and a bathhouse during her anniversary trip, earning her nickname "New York style."

Zauner bathes her mother and discovers black veins from treatment; she tries to hide Chongmi's patchy hair loss in the mirror.

Kye arrives and has Chongmi plant vegetable seeds each day; Chongmi finishes a full meal that Kye prepares for her.

Zauner drives Chongmi to an infusion clinic and plays "Tell Him," prompting a happy car singalong between them.

Kye shaves her own head in solidarity with Chongmi during one of the infusion clinic visits, moving Chongmi deeply.

Eunmi dies of stage IV colon cancer after a devastating illness; her final words are "Where are we going?"

Zauner and her father sit on the Seoul hospital rooftop drinking beers, unable to face the decision about Chongmi's ventilator.

Kye arranges for Chongmi to convert to Christianity before the wedding, which Chongmi accepts to make her friend feel better.

Kye returns drunk from gambling in the Highlands, argues with Zauner's father, and demands a car to leave immediately.

Wearing her mother's sandals, Zauner shops for ingredients and makes doenjang jjigae for Nami and Seong Young right after the funeral.

Zauner abandons her father at a dinner in Vietnam and spends the evening singing karaoke with a stranger named Quing.

These events fill in the texture of Zauner's world — her Korean family summers, her awakening as a musician, and the complicated dynamics surrounding Chongmi's illness. Childhood visits to Seoul with Halmoni and her aunts established Zauner's deep but uncertain connection to Korean culture, while early musical inspirations planted the seeds of her future career. During Chongmi's illness, competing relationships — especially Kye's intense caretaking — created friction and left Zauner feeling shut out of her own mother's life. The death of Eunmi casts a long shadow over how the whole family approaches Chongmi's treatment and decline. After Chongmi's death, Zauner's relationship with her father fractures further on a disastrous Vietnam trip, while a chance karaoke encounter with a stranger named Quing offers a glimpse of unexpected connection. Cooking her mother's food for Nami Emo right after the funeral marks the beginning of Zauner stepping into her mother's role as a caretaker through Korean cuisine.

The supporting moments that shaped Zauner's connection to her mother and Korean heritage.

Eunmi presents Zauner with an animal-ranking game in Seoul; Zauner learns that both she and Chongmi chose to keep the monkey.

When Zauner complains about being the only Korean girl at school, Chongmi tells her she is American, not Korean.

After watching Eunmi suffer through 24 rounds of chemotherapy and still die, Chongmi vows she will never endure the same.

Zauner discovers that her parents told Peter about the cancer diagnosis before telling her, so he would be ready to support her.

On the way to the Seoul airport, Zauner tells Peter she thinks they should get married; he squeezes her hand but says nothing.

Chongmi goes into septic shock in Seoul and is put on a ventilator, forcing the family to plan a medical evacuation to Oregon.

Zauner and Chongmi quietly go through Chongmi's jewelry box together, the closest Chongmi comes to acknowledging her approaching death.

Chongmi wakes in agony shouting her last words — "AH PEO! AH PEO!" — and is kept sedated until she dies.

After Chongmi's body is taken away, Zauner is left alone to dress her mother in a proper outfit, a task she finds devastating.

A package arrives containing a jade teapot and a letter in English from Chongmi's art teacher Yunie, praising Chongmi's growth.

Zauner looks through her mother's sketchbooks and sees the signature evolving until it settles on "Chong Z" months before her death.

Zauner begins writing music again after her mother's death and records Psychopomp with friends as a tribute to Chongmi.

Zauner opens her mother's kimchi fridge and finds hundreds of candid family photographs carefully stored inside over many years.

Nami reveals that "Coffee Hanjan" was one of Chongmi's favorite songs, which she and Nami performed at their father's parties as children.

Zauner and Nami sing "Coffee Hanjan" together at karaoke in Seoul, both looking for what remains of Chongmi in each other.

This pool traces the pivotal revelations and decisions that reshape how Zauner understands herself, her mother, and the grief she carries. Key discoveries about Chongmi's private beliefs — her vow never to pursue aggressive cancer treatment, her hidden love of Korean pop music — slowly fill in the ten percent she always kept from the world. The acute medical crises in Seoul and their harrowing immediate aftermath force Zauner to confront her mother's mortality and her own need to hold on. After Chongmi's death, Zauner channels grief through art and food, recording Psychopomp as a tribute and establishing a monthly kimchi-making ritual as a form of therapy and preservation. The discovery of hundreds of family photographs hidden in the kimchi fridge reveals the depth of Chongmi's love and her role as the keeper of family memory. The memoir closes on a healing return to Seoul, where a karaoke duet with Nami Emo over one of Chongmi's childhood songs finally offers Zauner a way to hold onto what she has lost.

The discoveries and emotional shifts that define Zauner's transformation through grief.