The Unwinding of the Miracle - Julie Yip-Williams Page 0,139

not just the cancer experience but the human experience in general, I want people to be able to find themselves in the writing. And in so doing, I want them to realize that they have never been and will never be alone in their suffering….I want them to find within the rich, twisted, and convoluted details of my life truth and wisdom that will bolster and comfort them through their joys and sorrow, laughter and tears.

And so now I face my own hard truth. That is to a great degree where committing Julie’s legacy to the page, and creating a record of her extraordinary life, comes in. Turning my attention to memorializing her story so that it will live on feels very purposeful, and is a way to engage the grief, conjure the memories, and come to terms with the fact that although she is gone, she will always live on, here, in the eternal present, taking me and her daughters, and you, too, by the hand, and telling you the most remarkable story. This becomes all the more important as the days and years and decades inevitably accumulate, life sweeps us all further down the river, and memory erodes. When I think about that happening, I am even more grateful for Julie’s writing.

In the spirit of that writing, and so that others who are going through ordeals similar to ours might not feel so alone in their suffering, before I finish here I feel that I must mention the toll that disease takes on even the best relationships. As deeply connected and profoundly committed as Julie and I were for the entirety of our time together, as death approached our paths diverged sharply. As she contemplated death and what comes next, I contemplated our daughters and the devastating prospect of life without and beyond Julie. The growing distance had the effect of making us seem alien to each other, like strangers flailing in the face of eternity. We became the focus of each other’s despair. It was often unbearable, and like many couples similarly trapped, we fought terribly and repeatedly. It got so bad that each of us threatened to leave at various times. Divorce was mentioned, brutal things were said. Such is the hurricane of terminal disease—it destroys not only the afflicted, but everyone and everything in its path as well.

But we didn’t leave. We didn’t divorce. Pulling back from such a brink when it feels that all in your life is spinning out of control requires an effort that can seem beyond you. But that is what Julie and I did. We faced that hard truth together, reaffirmed the reasons that had brought us together in the first place, and said all the things to each other that needed to be said.

The last months of her life and of our life together were lived in tender, loving appreciation. We held hands, we watched our favorite television shows, we fell asleep on the couch together. We did the thing that I most enjoyed in this world, which was simply spending time with her, however I could.

As I mentioned at the outset, I am Julie’s opposite in that I am not a public person. My reticence in that regard extends to Mia and Isabelle, too. They are such lovely young women, curious and kind, each possessed of Julie’s intellect and empathy. I will always try my best to live up to Julie’s standards for them, and to impart Julie’s love to them. They are coping with her absence in understandable and different ways. And on May 5, at our church in Brooklyn, each bravely got up before a roomful of people who had assembled for Julie’s memorial service and performed music for their mother—Mia on violin and Belle on piano.

And somewhere, Julie was listening, her eyes closed tightly, all the better to hear.

I love you to eternity, sweetheart. Until I see you again.

June 2018

This book is dedicated to Josh, Mia, and Isabelle—the loves of my life

to Lyna, Nancy, and Caroline—my beloved sisterhood

to my parents, 葉世福 and 林桂英, who did their best for me

and to my brother Mau, who walked me safely down the street

Acknowledgments

We will forever be grateful to many people, both for taking such loving care of Julie’s story and for taking such loving care of Julie and our family during the most trying times imaginable.

Thank you to Mark Warren of Random House, who was Julie’s editor but more important was Julie’s friend. Mark saw the distinctive power in Julie’s writing, and their long conversations gave this book its final shape. Thanks also to Julie’s fierce advocate, her literary agent, David Granger, who believed in this book before we knew a book was possible, and had the grace to remove his shoes as he entered our apartment (Julie couldn’t get over that). And, very importantly, sincere thanks to everyone at Random House, Julie’s literary home—in particular Andy Ward and the extraordinary marketing and publicity team, to whom Julie was very close—Leigh Marchant, Maria Braeckel, Michelle Jasmine, and Andrea DeWerd—and to production editor Evan Camfield, who took such wonderful care with Julie’s writing.

There are too many individuals to name, and so we do hope that the extraordinarily talented and dedicated medical professionals who treated and cared for Julie—from her first surgery at UCLA to NYU and Memorial Sloan Kettering—know just how grateful we are and will always be to them. We simply could not have asked for kinder or more patient or more intelligent attention, not just to Julie but to our whole family.

We would like to thank Mother Kate and the entire community at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church for taking us in when we most needed it.

Julie felt and Josh feels such deep gratitude for the law firm where Julie worked—Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton—and to Josh’s firm as well—Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. After Julie’s diagnosis in 2013, she didn’t work another day, but still Cleary kept her office for her, and her assistant remained dedicated to her for the rest of her life. Additionally, early on, Cleary held a fundraiser in Julie’s name, the proceeds of which went to colorectal cancer research. Julie’s diagnosis came just as Josh had made partner, which in and of itself can be a pretty stressful time. But Akin Gump made it clear to our family that what mattered most was Julie’s health, Mia and Isabelle’s well-being, and our collective peace of mind. We cannot say enough to thank these two firms for their kindness and support.

We cannot adequately express our thanks to the small town that lives in our Brooklyn apartment building—from perfectly timed covered dishes that kept us fed to perfectly timed offers of babysitting to just the wonderful companionship of the best neighbors a family could ask for, we are beyond grateful. Mia, Isabelle, and Josh will do their best to reciprocate the neighborliness.

We would like to thank Josh’s mom and Julie’s mother-in-law, Beck Williams, for her selfless and tireless service to Julie and the girls during the hardest moments. She would leave home for weeks at a stretch to come stay in Brooklyn to take Julie to chemotherapy, or just to keep her company. For that, we will be forever grateful.

We would be remiss if we did not thank perhaps the most important people to this enterprise: Julie’s readers. This book represents a dream come true for Julie, and the dream would have been impossible without you. Whether you read Julie’s blog or heard of her story elsewhere and have come to her writing here for the first time: Thank you for being here. You have our deepest gratitude. May her memory live on through all of us.

Last but not least, we also want to thank Michael Sapienza and everyone at the Colorectal Cancer Alliance (ccalliance). Julie believed in this group, supported its work, and subscribed to its mission, which is nothing short of a cure.