HOLDING ON: Grief-stricken wife Serim Han, followed by 20-year-old daughter Ashley, enters a press conference yesterday at their Queens church holding a photo of late husband Ki Suk, who was killed this week after being thrown onto subway tracks. “We want to thank everyone who has reached out,” Serim said. (
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She just wanted to say goodbye.
Ki Suk Han’s grieving daughter bared her pain yesterday over the death of her dad, who was hurled to his death by a madman at a Midtown subway station.
“I just really wish I had one last chance to tell my dad that I love him,” said Ashley Han at the Maspeth, Queens, church where they had attended services.
Later in the day, more than 200 people gathered at the Edward D. Jamie chapel in Flushing to pay their last respects.
Ashley, 20, told mourners at the service, “His words usually went in one ear and out the other. [But] I would do anything to hear those words one more time.
“I’m sorry for all my years of teenage angst. I promise to fulfill my role as your daughter.”
Ki Suk Han, 58, of Elmhurst, had immigrated to the United States from South Korea 25 years ago.
He was on his way to the Korean consulate to get a passport Monday when he was shoved onto the tracks and struck by a train at the 49th Street station near Times Square.
Serim Han told The Post earlier this week that her husband had a drinking problem and that she threw him out of the house just an hour and a half before he was killed.
“He was drunk. We had a fight before he left here at 11 a.m. I told him to leave,” she said Monday night.
But yesterday, his family and pastor remembered only better times, saying Han was a devoted father who encouraged his daughter’s education and volunteered at his church.
“He really enforced my education,” the Hunter College student said. “I’m still in disbelief.”
The family was shocked to see The Post’s dramatic front-page photo on Tuesday of Han scrambling to try to escape from the oncoming train.
“Actually, after they saw the photo, they couldn’t sleep,” said Pastor Won Tae Cho of Woori Presbyterian Church.
Cho said the family has been struggling financially in recent years.
Han was unemployed at the time of his death, and his wife could not work because of a disability. Serim Han filed for bankruptcy in 2010, citing nearly $100,000 in credit-card and bank debt, records show.
“Due to the economy, Mr. Han was in search of a new beginning to provide for him and his family,” said the pastor.
Han worked at a Midtown dry cleaners, but lost his job after the economy went south, said city Comptroller John Liu, who spoke on behalf of the family before the funeral.
“Mrs. Han became disabled a few years ago, so she has not been able to work for the last few years,” Liu said.
“The family lived a pretty simple life pursuing the American dream.
“Mr. Han was a hardworking immigrant and a New Yorker in every respect of the definition.’’
Despite the obstacles, the religious man kept his faith and helped out at the church.
“For one year, he cleaned the church although he was unemployed. He said to me. ‘I will overcome this barrier,’ ” Cho said. “Sometimes, he was just discouraged, but just last Sunday, after worship, he said, ‘I was encouraged by your sermon.”
Additional reporting by Joe Tacopino