The Unwinding of the Miracle - Julie Yip-Williams Page 0,50

gangster in any other setting in light of the way his dark brown hair was slicked back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck and the way the rippling muscles in his forearms bespoke an easy violence if he so chose. He silently cleaned me one night after I’d had a humiliating accident. The gentleness of his touch, and the absence of disgust and judgment, which I found shocking and so humbling, destroyed all my unkind preconceived notions of who he was. I doubted that I could do for a stranger what he was doing for me, but I wanted to after being in his presence. I witnessed through him the extent and power of compassion, the love that one human being can express to another through action alone, not because they know one another but because they are simply members of the same human race.

And then there was David, my colorectal surgeon, whose nimble hands removed sixty-eight lymph nodes, an extraordinary number that was a testament to his exceptional skill and tenacity. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has had sixty-eight lymph nodes removed laparoscopically. As I’ve often been told, the best odds for survival begin with a skilled surgeon, and I had the best surgeon I could possibly have had. He is my age, and he and his wife are Chinese American, and have two children, too, who are about the same ages as Mia and Belle. David spent hours answering our questions, going over the incomprehensible color photos from the surgery with Josh and me, reviewing the results of the pathology and scan reports, punching holes in the troubling studies, and then telling Josh not to “perseverate,” filling my head with stories of patients who had overcome against all odds.

I’m sure David felt sorry for us—a young family much like his own coming out to Los Angeles for vacation and then being blindsided by an advanced cancer diagnosis. I would have felt sorry for me, too. But even so, he did more than a typical compassionate doctor would have done. He befriended us (or as much as he could, given the doctor-patient dynamics of our relationship). When he heard that we were looking for a short-term rental nearby so I could recuperate, he offered us an unused part of his house. We didn’t think he was actually serious, so we just ignored the offer.

At the end of our monthlong stay in L.A., on the evening before we were to fly back to New York, he invited us to his rambling house perched on the side of a canyon, for a playdate with the kids and dinner. It was then that we realized he’d actually been sincere in his offer of a place to stay. Our kids played with ladybugs and puzzles that focused on the different parts of the human body while the adults drank and ate cheese, mussels, pasta, and ice cream. It was a lovely evening, reinforcing my belief that under different circumstances, we would have been true friends. At the end of the evening, as we said our goodbyes, I stood there facing an uncertain and terrifying future and facing David, this man who had seen and removed the raging, murderous tumor in me. I tried to find the words to express my gratitude. How do you say thank you to the person who has seen your insides and saved your life? Is it even possible? No words came. I made a helpless gesture with my hand that was supposed to mean “thank you,” and then I broke down in tears. We hugged, and he cried, too. And then he looked at me and told me, “You’re going to be fine, just fine.”

My Chinese last name means leaf. The Chinese love their idiomatic sayings, where four syllables can carry deep and profound meaning. There is one in particular that I associate with my time in Los Angeles, both while at UCLA and in the weeks after, and that is “A fallen leaf always returns to its roots.” I was undeniably a fallen leaf then, and I had returned to the place where I grew up, where so much of my family and so many friends remain, and where new friends gathered, where they encircled me, Josh, and our girls in love and protection, where I started the process of rebirth into a new life. My parents would go back and forth between their home and the hospital and then later the