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