How my mother’s cancer shaped my experiences

In the familiar setting that was our living room couch, the TV against the wall and toys safe in the drawers, my mom told me and my brother she had breast cancer. I was twelve or thirteen, barely able to understand it, but my heart almost stopped. What do you mean, my mother, who raised me, protected me, and could do anything and took me anywhere, had cancer? I couldn’t believe it, but I had to. Like when she and my dad told us they were getting divorced, it was shocking, and life-changing, but everything just went on like it never happened. My dad and other family members told me to take more care of her, and everyone seemed to step more lightly around us. I treated her the same, as if her own cells weren’t turning against her and eating her up from the inside.

Slowly, years went by. People made jokes about cancer, and I wanted to spit back that it was my mom they were talking about. I started running for my mom in the Terry Fox runs, while before I’d struggled to put a name down. 癌症 (ái zhèng), cancer, was a familiar word to me, in Chinese even more than in English. You learn words other second-generation immigrants don’t know when your family members get sick. From my grandparents: high blood pressure, diabetes. From my mom: cancer, surgery, and so many hospital visits that the word hospital was about as common as school. 媽媽有癌症. Mommy has cancer. Checkups, medications, then surgeries, but her death was never an option in my head. I knew people died from cancer, and I knew there might have been a chance, but I didn’t worry much. I was focused on school, the pandemic, my lack of friends, and the Internet.

When my mom got a mastectomy and replaced her breasts, I complained about how they felt too hard when she hugged me. She told me it’s okay, I’d get used to it. Those words, looking back, were probably very difficult to hear coming from her own child’s mouth. I always loved her warm hugs, head against her chest or tummy, listening to the sounds of my mother’s body.

One sunny morning, as I was being driven to school, my dad said my mom was going to get a surgery that day. It finally scared me. What if she didn’t come out alive? No way, I told myself, but I still couldn’t focus in class. I felt stupid for worrying. She was fine.

I was at school when I got a call.

“When are you off school? You’re going to the hospital,” my paternal grandmother said. My grandpa, with her by his side, picked me and my brother up in the parking lot. Donning on masks, warm breaths trapped by the cloth as we breathed, they dropped us off at the hospital, stairs looming above us. As our dad stepped carefully, leading us to her room, we got to her. She told us she didn’t have much longer. Maybe weeks to months. I burst into tears, my brother stood still, and our dad watched us both.

I only visited her twice in the hospital. Maybe she didn’t want me to see her like that, especially at sixteen, but I deeply regret not visiting her more. I didn’t get to ask her any deeper questions, nor lighter ones. I never got to know her favorite things, like her favorite flowers, shows, or movies.

Stepping aside for her and my brother to talk, I thought about what I’d say to her. When it was my turn, I don’t remember what else I said before, but I told her I didn’t want to be a girl, and she remembered when I asked her for a compression bra and she had told me I couldn’t have it, and changed her mind. She told me times have changed, and she loved me. I told her my new name, but I don’t think she liked it. Maybe she wasn’t used to it, maybe I was too forward with it. I wish she could’ve been the one to name me a second time. But that was the only conversation we ever had directly about my gender, and I wish I could tell her now I’m not a boy either.

I thought she was going to be around for longer. I thought she would have time to use my new name, to talk about other stuff. I thought I was going to visit her more. We only had one last conversation in person about a week later, with me and my brother in the room. We recorded it, but neither of us have listened to it since. I forget what she told us. I forget her voice. It was shakier, weaker when she was dying. I wish I had a recording of us talking while we were all healthy and enjoying life.

One night, I got a call from the hospital, my dad asking me to say goodbye so she could pass peacefully. She had been hanging on worried about me and I told her I loved her, but I would be fine without her. I told her it’s okay to go. It’s a lie I don’t regret telling. When we hung up, I laid on the bed. And I cried.

When she passed, it was fall, the sun already set far below the horizon. I was soundly asleep in my bed, and no one was awake but my dad watching over her. After she died, she was quickly surrounded by people from the temple, chanting Buddhist mantras for many hours. My dad was one of them. He sat by her side, the one who took care of her most before she died, years after they separated.

Life went on after that. I went through my last two years of high school, work piling on work as I studied and the back of my mind filled with grief. It never really spilled out, I think. Bits leaked out during weekends, a winter break wasn’t enough, and I fell apart as I dropped courses and almost failed a class.

I graduated without my mother.

am i still your angel? even if i want to be a guy? am i still your daughter will i always be your daughter even if i’d want to be your son if you were still alive? am i still beautiful when i cry with my new glasses? with my new friends that you never got to meet? am i still beautiful to you even if you never got to see me like this? i’m sorry for falling apart mom.

i didn’t want to. i thought i’d be okay.

• Me, 2023