S

he lay on her side with her head on the armrest, her 
angular shoulder wedged into the square corner of 
the couch. She was so small, you nearly missed her 

with a quick glance at the living room. But if you stared 
long enough, you could see the rise and fall of her chest. 
If you listened close enough, you could hear the wheezing 
of her lungs.

I remember a lot of things: the things you see in 

movies, the things you read in novels. Her hair came out 
in stages — sticking to the brush in small strokes at first, 
then falling out in handfuls to fill the bucket we kept by 
the sink. She never threw up — at least that I knew of — 
but she hacked as if to turn the walls of her intestines 
inside out. Her nails chipped and turned yellow, then 
blue, then black. She lost her appetite and I watched her 
ribs protrude from her skin one at a time.

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and lung 

cancer when I was in eighth grade.

I remember coming home to my parents sitting at the 

dining table. The air so still, I could see the specks of dust 
hovering in space.

I didn’t fully understand it then, what it meant to live 

with a disease. She had surgery on her breast, before the 
radiation and chemo. They removed a quarter of her lung 
to rid the tumor, and she was left with a gashing scar that 
ran down her back — a slightly pinker, second spine. She 
fully recovered a year later, and by then I was accustomed 
to packing lunches for my dad, my brother and myself, as 
well as cooking dinner, cleaning the house and waiting 
for clothes to dry while learning algebra.

My eighth grade was different. I got little sleep, which 

I now think trained me well for this rigorous college 
curriculum. I was forced to grow up, forced to see pain 
and feel the fear of death lurking in its peripheries.

Maybe it was a combination of this fear and 

independence that led me to attend boarding school in 
another country and subsequently leave for college far 
away.

I know it sounds ironic — why leave? How could I. 
I started dancing when I was three years old and 

dreamed of becoming a professional dancer in a Chicago-
based contemporary dance company. When my family 
moved from California to Japan after fourth grade, I was 
shocked by the culture but also the urgency I felt to return 
to the United States. I wanted to pursue this dream that 
formed over time, crystalline images that were so clear 
they were reflective.

My mom supported me most. Dreaming isn’t easy for 

everyone, she used to tell me. I was lucky to have a dream, 
to want something so badly I could change my lifestyle. I 
could travel across the globe. So I did.

After boarding school in North Carolina, an ACL tear 

and an awakening for a career shift, I chose to attend 
the University of Michigan to double major in dance and 
neuroscience and pursue a career path in medicine.

I was entirely consumed by my happiness, with the 

feeling of finally finding my niche and belonging to a 
university-sized world that I could pin my own. This is 
probably why the news of the recurrence of lung cancer 
hit me hard.

Stage 4 lung cancer — not surgically removable or 

treatable with radiation or chemo like last time.

My mom got the news of the recurrence in October. 

I may have been at a football game, I may have been 
drunk off cheap wine, I may have been locked in the 

library thinking midterms were a series of metastatically 
depressing days. My parents waited to tell me. It wouldn’t 
have been right to tell you over the phone, when you 
couldn’t see my face and know that I’m OK, my mom 
rationalized.

I didn’t understand how fighting cancer twice wasn’t 

enough.

I didn’t understand how someone who never smoked 

a cigarette and cooked every single meal from scratch 
could receive this sort of punishment from life. I didn’t 
understand why it always had to be her, why it couldn’t be 
the chainsmoker across the street or the serial killer who 
got away — someone who deserved it, someone not her.

How could a mom so selfless, who let her daughter 

leave home get this in return? How could someone make 
it their life mission to give and teach compassion and 
receive an ultimatum: You fight this war in the front lines 
or you die. I didn’t understand. I still don’t understand.

I would have taken her place if I could. But honestly, I 

don’t think I could. Say genome editing allowed my mom 
and I to swap our DNA helices — I could not take her 
place. I wish I could, I wanted to say I could, but I was 
too scared. Despite my astronomical feelings of guilt and 
resentment for the spontaneous recurrence of malignant 
cells, I wasn’t brave enough. I could not even begin to 
comprehend the fear she felt going to bed and waking up 
to, day after day.

And you know what the hardest part was? That she 

was still her — she was still happier than me, she was still 
more positive and giving than I could ever be. Watching 
her, with just three quarters of regular lung capacity, 
taking oral drugs to suppress tumor growth that were 
nothing short of poisonous, hurt.

If she could wake up in the morning and smile, still 

give something positive to the world, there was nothing 
I couldn’t do.

On New Year’s Day, I remember sitting at home with 

my mom. Because Japan is 13 hours ahead of Michigan, 
my Snapchat and Instagram were exploding with sparkly 
cocktail dresses and shiny cocktail glasses. Champagne 

corks hitting ceilings, people throwing kisses like confetti.

I remember sitting at the dining table, my mom sitting 

in front of me. The medication managed to stop the 
tumor’s growth but came with strong side effects. Her 
nails were destroyed, her fingers cut and the skin on her 
back covered in hives. I helped her apply the antibiotic 
ointment on her back every night to places she couldn’t 
reach. I covered the red bumps with the white cream like 
snow covering mountain tops.

For the first time, it occurred to me that my happiness 

fueled my mom. That I, pursuing my passions, inching 
toward my dream and happiness, was her greatest dream. 
That maybe, just maybe, the best thing I could do was 
focus on myself and my aspirations, because the sight 
of me refusing to quit somehow was a reflection on her 
relentlessness and willpower — I am living proof that she 
will not lose this war she is fighting.

Nov. 7 marks my mom’s two-year anniversary of the 

start of this medication. The tumor has not grown and 
that is what I am grateful for every morning. Every couple 
of weeks, she goes to the Kobe City Medical Center to 
get checked. Her lungs, her breasts and her blood. Every 
couple of weeks, my stomach drops and my intestines 
feel as though they are getting wrung out dry. But every 
couple of weeks, I am reminded of how lucky I am.

It is so easy to get caught in the drama of college, the 

friendships that fail, the relationships that disintegrate 
and the grades that teeter on a pinpoint. I took a cancer 
seminar last year and read cases of medications failing 
after long-term use. I fear that this balance of tumor 
suppression and growth could be shattered any day.

But I think this fear is what drives me forward. It is 

what tells me to appreciate today for what it is, to remind 
the people I love that I love them for who they have 
made me become and inspire me to be, and to never take 
anything for granted. I hope that someday I will have the 
kindness and strength my mom carries with her every 
day — that one day, I can embrace the future the way she 
embraces tomorrow.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016 // The Statement
6B

Dancing For My Mom

by Yoshiko Iwai, Daily Staff Reporter

ILLUSTRATION BY ELISE HAADSMA

