JULLIET "JULIE" UPADHYAY

UPADHYAY, Julliet ("Julie") Julliet "Julie" Park Upadhyay died of pancreatic cancer on December 19, 2024, while asleep at her home in Brookline. She was surrounded by her parents, husband and children. She was 49 years old. Julie was born on June 14, 1975 in San Diego, California, to Chong and Kyu Park, immigrants from South Korea. She was their first child and they named her Mee-il (which ended up her maiden middle name), meaning beautiful-one. Before they left the hospital, they felt they needed to add an American name and picked Julliet, after Julie Andrews. Julie's parents worked multiple jobs, and for many years starting when she was about 6½ years old(!), Julie was the primary caretaker for her four-years-younger brother, Benjamin, before and after school and on some weekends. By the time Julie graduated from Mount Carmel High School in 1993, she was eager to escape San Diego and find a more fast-paced and stimulating environment. She attended Carnegie Mellon University and enjoyed Pittsburgh college life until she graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Science in molecular biology. Then she was off to South Korea for a year, where she taught English at Jun-nong Middle School by day and frequented Seoul's restaurants, bars, and karaoke lounges with friends at night. In 1999, Julie moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA's Masters in Public Health program and earn the first of her three master's degrees. During this time, she made several close friends and traveled to Japan for an earthquake conference. Upon completion of the program, she moved to Manhattan to work as an epidemiologist. With the exception of six months in Australia, Manhattan was Julie's home for the next 13 years. During this time, she made several lifelong friends, she met, dated, and married her husband Sameer, she earned her second master's, an MBA from New York University, and she transitioned from work in TB control at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to work in corporate finance at Citigroup. This role included an assignment in Australia, where she lived with her husband for six months in 2007. While there, she became scuba-certified and scuba dived the Great Barrier Reef. She also went from never having run to running her first of many organized races, the 14 km City2Surf from downtown Sydney to Bondi beach. Later races included a New York City half-marathon, several Cambridge, MA half-marathons, and a 200-mile Ragnar relay ending in Cape Cod. Julie's daughter Ella was born in 2009, and Julie soon quit her job to be with Ella full-time. In 2011, her son Devan was born. She would not go back to work until both her children were spending most of their weekdays in school. She said those years at home full-time with her "beautiful babies" were the best of her life. Julie's "favorite thing in the world by far" was being Ella's and Devan's mother, and she considered herself extremely lucky to have that experience. Julie and her family moved to Brookline, MA in 2014, when Ella and Devan were 5 and 3 years old. Here, as in New York, she built them a home where they loved to be, and a community of their friends and their friends' families to surround it. Once they were in school full-time, Julie turned to a new career in clinical social work, starting with her third master's degree at Simmons University followed by caring for clients as an LCSW both in the community and in the hospital. When the COVID pandemic hit, she was extremely thoughtful and effective in improvising a lifestyle for her household that protected her children's education, socialization, and physical activity while observing all precautions. Julie filled her family's lives with heart-to-hearts, hugs and snuggles, her frequent, genuine, joyful laugh, and engaging activities, including family trips throughout the world and live music and theater. She also constantly taught them to practice kindness, curiosity, and introspection. She loved Ella and Devan beyond measure, and told them that her love for them will endure forever and she will always be with them.