November 7, 2023, Stuart arriving at Taipei/Taoyuan Airport from Warsaw/Amsterdam/Heathrow flight to Taiwan.

 


  A cursory biographical obituary of Stuart Langston Murry by Michael Richard Murry, his aggrieved and loving father

Stuart was born on December 20, 1974 at Palm Harbor Hospital in Garden Grove. He had trouble breathing at first, so he had to remain in an incubator for three days before the doctors would release him to our care. But he grew quickly and soon – ten months later – had a new brother, Vincent, to share diapers, crib, and just about everything two young boys can do together.

We lived in an apartment in Gardena until 1977 when we bought our first home in Long Beach, near Bellflower Blvd and Carson/Lincoln avenues, an excellent location near Heartwell Park where Stuart and his brother played recreation and club soccer – which I got talked into coaching – while finishing elementary school and beginning the seventh grade. Since I worked in manufacturing and engineering for the Hughes Aircraft Company, I started bringing computers home where Stuart immediately fell to work on them, beginning his lifelong infatuation with software programming. He also started playing my guitars about this time and got quite good at the instrument.

In 1988 we moved to our second home in Cypress near Chapman and Valley View Blvds so Stuart and his brother could attend Pacifica High School, get a good secondary education, and excel at both soccer and football, both of them earning four varsity letters in the first sport and two in the second. Then they graduated high school and went off to college: Stuart at Devry Tech and Vincent on a football scholarship to the Merchant Marine Academy. As their divorced and single father, I was left with the proverbial “empty” nest and the nagging question of what does a man do with his life after he has accomplished that task which he considered his life’s purpose: raising his sons to capable adulthood?

To help earn money pay for his post-secondary education, Stuart enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserves where he served six years, finally earning a promotion to Lance Corporal and an Honorable Discharge. As a Vietnam Veteran myself, I considered myself blessed that neither Stuart nor his brother ever got sent off to war.

The years went by and Stuart earned a precarious living in the unstable computer/software industry. He married and divorced twice, having a son by the first marriage whom the first wife and her family never permitted him to see or communicate with, an injustice that wounded him deeply. His second marriage ended in an amicable divorce so that Stuart ended his life as a single man still seeking the loving companionship he so selflessly offered to others. This love and encouragement he often found in his parents and brother Vincent’s family. As a son, brother, uncle, nephew, cousin, and friend, Stuart treasured all these human relationships.

Stuart passed away on December 9, 2023 as a result of a tragic accident in Keelung (northern), Taiwan near his mother’s home and Taoist Shrine whose affairs she represents and administers. Stuart had been visiting his mother after visiting myself, his father, and Carol Wu, my wife – his “second mommy,” as Stuart liked to call her – in Kaohsiung (southern), Taiwan. Upon notification of Stuart’s passing, all of us immediately got caught up in Taiwan’s – and the American Institute of Taiwan’s – legal and administrative proceedings with Carol doing most of the work requiring use of the Mandarin and Taiwanese languages. As soon as he could, Vincent came to Taiwan to see myself and his mother, afterwards returning to the United States with Stuart’s cremated remains which we inter into the earth of California, the state that he had always considered his home.

These brief remarks do not do justice to Stuart’s nearly fifty years of life or how much love and friendship he had to offer the world. But in the short space of an hour’s commemorative services, it will have to do.

 

  (L) November 15, 2023: Stuart and Dad enjoying shaved ice. (R) November 17, 2023: Stuart helping Carol celebrate Dad's 76th birthday.

 

 

  (L) November 27, 2023: Stuart, with Dad and Carol at the movie theater for a showing of "Napoleon." (R) December 4, 2023: Stuart and Dad on Love River bridge.

 

 

  (L) December 4, 2023: Stuart, with Dad at "Kaohsiung Bridge" (Love River). (R) December 4, 2023: Closeup of Stuart with Dad after crossing Love River bridge on the way to bus stop.

 

  (L) December 9, 2023: Dad at 7/11 mailing Stuart's backpack to him at his mother's. (R) December 9, 2023: Closeup of Dad at 7/11 with Stuart's backpack which he never lived to receive.


 

  At Rose Hills Cemetery for Stuart's funeral, January 20, 2024

 

[Photo by Jack E. Murry, Jr. (Stuart's Uncle)]

   Stuart's brother Vincent (center forground) with cousins Allison (on the left) and Shauna (on the right) with Uncle Jack in the background.