The Cancer Journals

67.1 million people die each year. 10 million  people die from cancer, and 1.8 million die from lung cancer. And this is how my record of the cancer journal begins. To honor a fight to win against cancer.

2016-2017

I’m not sure when it started but it definitely started that’s why it happened. Things can often start without anyone noticing, actually most things start unnoticed. There was nothing wrong with you, at least that’s what I keep telling myself. That’s why I keep lying to myself.

2018/2/12

There’s something wrong, actually there has been something wrong for a while. But this is when we finally notice. We’re on a trip, but you can’t get out of the car because your leg is all of a sudden just wrong. But that’s all right (It wasn’t) so we went to see the trees. The trees were in a protected park, it is apparent that the older something gets, the more reputation it gets, and the more it is protected. The trees were mostly over a thousand years old, which means they deserved a lot of protection. I was seven, my world was about fluffy things, sweets, doing dangerous things, and not holding still for a picture things you get the idea. Death was simply not a thing to me. It was merely brushed against the side of my world, a small silver streak weaving and connecting things. 

The branches of our Sakura Tree were barren, not yet showing any signs of life, but bursting with potential. It was early in February and the other trees had not shown any life either, but you always sat at your desk facing the Sakura Tree waiting for it to blossom. 

2018/6/7

We have an idea of what’s wrong but it is but an idea. During a check-up a tumor appears, correction, it didn’t appear it was there and we just didn’t know. It was in a bad spot, a wrong spot. There was a risk of cancer, but there wasn’t cancer in your blood so we did the surgery. We took it out. It was a risk. 

The Sakura Tree was exploding in light green leaves, folded in intricate patterns each the same but different. The cicadas were screaming in the heat. The house constantly smelled like sunlight. The fern trees turned from pale green to a bold jade. Our outdoor pagoda was covered with the vines and tiny yellow flowers of Black-eyed Susans. The round Rhododendron bush green most of the year turned to a hot pink vying against the Black-eyed Susans for beauty. In the pageant of our back yard, the bleak whiteness of lung cancer creeps in. 

2018/9/23

Happy 80th birthday Grandma! This was your second-to-last birthday. I hope it was happy though. Mom brought a cake. The cake was red all over, tiny golden flowers settled all over pearls engraved in the middle. There was a little old lady in the middle, plump cheeks, large jade earrings, and wearing a traditional red Chinese robe. She held a longevity peach in her hand, and stood triumphantly over her field of flowers. We ate noodles to symbolize that your life would be as long as noodles. Happy Birthday, you looked so happy.

The Sakura trees' leaves were starting to turn golden. But weren’t going to fall until late November due to the warm Shanghai weather. It was a warm day and the remaining cicadas screamed in the trees, and even when we shut the curtains for the birthday candles to be lit the sun stubbornly shone into the room. The room glowed golden and for a second everything was forgotten. The world fell away, but as it always does, it would soon ground itself.

2018/10/15

So, it happened that we finally had an idea of what was going on. You had cancer in your blood. I remember one day still standing on a stool and brushing my teeth while you helped me with my morning routine. The morning was normal, and I was ecstatic that my front teeth had started to grow back in and soon I wouldn’t have a lisp anymore. So I stood on my stool and took extra care to brush my new front teeth. “Grandma, is seriously ill.” You said. I didn’t respond, I wasn’t worried. When I was ill mom always made me drink lots of water and I got better. Water wasn’t going to do the trick this time.

There was a problem in our yard, the crows had made a nest on top of the Sakura tree. At first it was just something to gawk at, and I remember many a day when I sat on your legs and peered up at the two birds constantly at work. Soon however, our moss began to go missing. It might seem like a weird hobby to plant moss. But it is like most things—beautiful only once you explore it. The lush green carpet covers most of our front yard, creeping to the two-storey tall Sakura tree. Soon the moss began to grow patchy in places, and it was not long until we realized that the moss had gone to the crow’s nest. We were angry, my dad even threatening to shoot the crow nest with his slingshot. We forgot that it was only nature at work. It is us that has changed nature’s path so much for good and for bad that we deny it when it's at work. 

2018/12/31

Happy New Year’s Eve grandma. We are having home-cooked hot pot. Just like every year, there were all the items you could think of, everything from sauces to beef. Just like every year there was a plastic sheet across the table, and just like every year a new sheet had to be put on since a certain child kept picking large holes in it while no one was watching. That was the last family hot pot we had.

The Sakura tree’s branches were bare, gleaming slightly against the noon winter sun. The crow’s nest is long abandoned, and falling apart. We all grew quiet to miss it, though, of our silent regret. Some things we only grow to miss through loss.

2019/4/9

This was your last time out to dinner. We ate Chinese food out. I was always excited to eat out since I got tired of your home cooking, but some days now your cooking is the only thing I want to eat. Lost now, not to be found. 

The Sakura Tree had just blossomed. The ground was littered with pink petals growing translucent from the late spring rain, and the footsteps of the gardener. The Sakura Tree itself had dawned green leaves that had crept in through the blossoming.

2019/9/17

Well, it happened. Finally, enough hair had fallen out due to chemotherapy that your hair had to be shaved. The concept that when you had to kill your biggest enemy you had to in turn kill yourself was never really logical to me. I guess sometimes the bigger the cause the greater the cost. You were the strongest women I have ever met, and didn’t even bat an eye at the hair stripped from your head. I am now almost a 9-year old and was scared of bald people. I’m scared I told my mother on our next visit. Now I am scared to even bring you up.

The Sakura Tree is lush and green. Not yet showing signs of fall. Unlike the Sakura Tree,  you weren’t full of hope. When people start to lose hope, it is when reality sinks in. Because hope is a thing that lies. Always lies.

2020/3/29

The car rushed from the highway, through skyscrapers, into the hospital. I thought that you had only lost hope again, and we were on the way to console you. I thought I could fix it. But as I entered the room of tubes red and clear, machines beeping out the reason you were here, I realized no talking could help. So, I sat there and said over and over again the half-wish you should not go. I can never forget the breathing-gasping even though you were in a coma. I went to sleep as it got late into the night. I never should have. Really shouldn’t have. I never even saw you go. When you became one of the 67.1 million that died.

The Sakura Tree burst into blossoms. The whole tree exploded into pink, and not even the grave late march weather could subdue them. 

Cancer is DNA making a mistake. DNA is the base of every living thing. Every living thing is coded to make a mistake. So nothing is eternal, not life, not death, not the petals on the Sakura tree. That was the last time I ever said goodbye to you. Until then, the Sakura Tree will always wait for you in full blossom, since you never saw them explode. Even the extraordinary happens when hope lies.