all the shit that you are putting me through. I want to find the greatest love possible in this world. I want to find someone who will love me until the end of my days with an uncompromising and unparalleled love.” That was the one-sided deal I struck with God again and again.
I suppose I was like most other teenage girls, my head filled with romantic notions as I read Barbara Cartland novels and Harlequin romances. My father forbade me from reading any of what he called in his broken English “I love you” books, so I hid their trashy covers behind white Chinese calendar paper, and he left me alone to dream about my Mr. Right—there are certain benefits to your parents not being able to read English. Of all the things I could have demanded as part of my bargain with God, I chose love because love was unattainable. Finding love seemed out of my control, totally dependent on timing and fate. It wasn’t like scoring the perfect report card, which could be achieved through individual will and hard work. Mostly, though, I thought love to be unattainable because I believed I was unlovable. I mean, who would ever want me, as physically defective as I was? Who would ever willingly agree to be hampered by my limitations? What desirable guy would want to be forced to drive me around, read menus for me, help me down stairs, be precluded from couples sports like tennis, have his family and friends stare at the geeky girl with the thick glasses? No one, I thought.
But God accepted my deal!
He brought tall, (kind of) dark, handsome, and brilliant Josh into my life. As unlikely as it was for this Waspy good ol’ boy from the South to walk unsuspectingly into the office of this immigrant girl from Vietnam with her screwed-up vision on the forty-third floor of a posh skyscraper in lower Manhattan all those years ago, the forces of the universe (a.k.a. God) made it happen. I know that many people never find the kind of love Josh and I share, a love that was tested and strengthened from the very beginning by terrifying challenges (not unlike the life-threatening challenges that face us now). From the start, I always thought Josh had the kindest and most generous heart that a human being could have (as flawed as we both are), and I tried and still do try to fiercely protect his heart from anybody and anything that threatens him. It is the least I can do for this man who loves me so abidingly, this man who makes sure my water bottle is always filled and makes me go to bed when I’ve fallen asleep on the couch, this man who has always read menus to me like it was the most natural thing in the world to do, this man who loves me just as I am.
But I can’t protect him from cancer and all the bad stuff that is beyond my control. I can’t shield him from his now constant fear of life without me. I can’t take away his sense of total helplessness. I can’t promise him that I will win this war. I absolutely hate what this cancer is doing to him. I hate how it makes him cry and rage and despair. I hate cancer more for what it is doing to Josh than for what it is doing to me.
Ever since the diagnosis, fear for Josh and my loved ones seems to live in every molecule of my body. Why did he sleep so much over the weekend? Could he have cancer? What about the wrist pain and indigestion he’s complaining about? I look at my children with the same fears. Does Belle have brain cancer because she lost her balance that one time? Does Mia have cancer because her poop looked unusual the other day? Cancer is so insidious that it attacks your every waking thought. It’s not a disease so much as it is the enemy of existence, come to turn our bodies against us. Whatever modicum of security I once felt is completely shattered. If cancer and bad shit struck once, they can and will strike again. I know it.
So I lie awake at night now with the voices in my head screaming these questions, wondering what horrible thing will happen to me and my family next. And I find myself making another deal with God, going back to