into English then, because I didn’t have the words in Chinese, knowing she would understand at least the universal sentiments. “I love you, Grandma. I’m going to miss you so much. And I’m going to make you so proud of me, I promise.” In tears, I put her hand back on her stomach and turned away to leave the room, to find a corner in the hallway where I could cry and grieve in solitude. I barely heard the sudden sobs that arose from those in the room as my father grabbed my shoulder and forced me to face my grandmother once more. She’d raised her hand and was waving it ever so slowly back and forth in a gesture of farewell. What that simple act must have cost her in terms of pain endured and energy spent I can only imagine. Understanding that this was her ultimate gesture of love left me crying for days, months, and years afterward.
I’ve spent the years since my diagnosis grieving and exploring the darkness, but I’ve also basked in the love and compassion shown to me, not unlike the love shown to my grandmother. I have loved my family and they me much more than if I had not become sick; we’ve learned to communicate with each other with an intimacy I would have never dreamed possible had life gone the way I had planned. Because of my insistence on honesty in confronting death, my girls show an emotional maturity, compassion, and appreciation for life rarely seen in children of their age. We have traveled far and wide; I oversaw the combination and construction of a beautiful home that my children will grow into for years to come. I’ve rejoiced in the ordinary, too, the things that others take for granted and even resent—the cooking and the parent-teacher conferences and the forcing of homework and violin practice. I have lived even as I am dying, and therein lies a certain beauty and wonder. As it turned out, I have spent these years unwinding the miracle that has been my life, but on my terms.
Before the light goes out, I would like to say that, Second Wife, I don’t hate you. Please love the family that was mine with all your heart. Take care of them, and live out the life for me that I could not.
Mother, Father, I forgive you. And I thank you.
I will see you soon, Grandmother. I have some things to say to you. I have been thinking about them for a long time.
And for any who might be reading this: I am grateful to have had you here, on this journey. I would presume to encourage you to relish your time, to not be disabled by trials or numbed by routine, to say yes as much as you can, and to mock the probabilities. Luxuriate in your sons and daughters, husbands and wives. And live, friends. Just live. Travel. Get some stamps in those passports.
I traveled to Antarctica several years ago. There, in the midst of its vast unearthly beauty, I felt as if I were glimpsing another planet, another dimension, possibly the afterlife. It was a retired widower from Indiana whom I’d met a year earlier during a safari in South Africa who told me he’d been to Antarctica and that it had been a very spiritual experience. That planted the seed in my head, and after a particularly exhausting transaction closed at work in October 2005, I booked a last-minute trip to Antarctica for late November, several weeks ahead of my thirtieth birthday. I went alone (or as alone as you can when going to Antarctica, since there really is no way for the ordinary tourist to get there other than to join a group), making my way down to Tierra del Fuego, the very tip of South America, from which all the Antarctica-bound ships in the Western Hemisphere depart. Together with forty-three other tourists from all over the world, I boarded a Russian ice vessel and embarked on a turbulent two-day crossing of the Drake Passage to reach the Antarctic Peninsula.
On Thanksgiving Day, as we approached land with the ship breaking through sheets of ice that had formed on the water’s surface, I stood on deck, gazing in absolute wonder at the massive glaciers in infinite shades of white, blue, and green rising above the water, majestic arches and craggy mountains made of old and new ice sculpted over time, more glorious than anything ever