by Annie Choi
“This is so fucking ridiculous, Mom. Why is this happening to us?”
“Anne, you stop cry. You mouth so dirty, I get bleach.”
This time, she sounded weak and fragile. She wheezed from the pressure of the bandages. She talked softly and slowly and her mouth was dry. She couldn’t drink anything twenty-four hours before going into the operating room. It was the worst I had ever heard her, and I thought that maybe she wouldn’t make it. Cancer, an infection, an allergic reaction, a car accident, a daughter with a dirty mouth. It was as if someone was trying to get rid of her. I wanted to be there.
“Can I at least come home for the weekend?”
“Anne, shh, it OK. You promise me you not worry. Please stay at school. You have no reason to come.”
“No reason? You’re the reason why I’d come. Just to see you, don’t you want to see me?”
My mother was silent. I tried not to get angry; this wasn’t allowed to be about me.
“Anne, sweetheart, please. You come home for summer vacation in three week. You can wait. I don’t want you see me like this. On outside I look worse than I feel on inside, you understand?”
I heard her voice shake, just a little. Or maybe I thought I heard it shake. I couldn’t remember the last time I heard my mother cry. Crying was not something she did; she was too tough for that. When my mother told her mother about the breast cancer, my grandmother started tearing. My mother scoffed, “Don’t be such a baby, I’m fine.” As far as I know, nothing, not even cancer, could make her cry. At least not in front of people. She was careful to keep up an illusion of strength and for the most part it worked, or maybe everyone let her think it was working.
“It’s just not fair, why did he have to crash into you? Why couldn’t he hit someone else? Anyone else? Why did he have to hit the one with cancer?”
“No problem, you know? I do surgery before, very easy. I go sleep and doctor fix and I wake up. So easy for me. Nothing to worry about. How school? You meet any Korean boy?”
“Mom, this isn’t funny. Cancer’s not funny.”
“You know what funny?”
“What?”
“Today Daddy tell me I got jury duty. I got jury duty, how funny! I think jury duty worse than cancer. Maybe I tell them I have cancer and they feel sorry for me, you think?”
For my mother, I wrote a request for an excusal from civic duty and sent it to the Jury Commissioner’s Office, citing extreme physical impairment. I attached a copy of her medical records, highlighting the long list of prescribed drugs that stopped her cells from dividing so quickly—drugs with side effects that could impair judgment in a courtroom. I also attached a copy of the accident report, in case breast cancer wasn’t a good enough of an excuse. My request was granted.
The surgery to repair her damaged chest tissue went well, much to everyone’s relief, and my mother recovered a few days in the hospital. My father told me she handled it well, just like her mastectomy and chemo.
“You mommy very tough. I think is she tougher than me.”
“You’re tough, too. We’re all tough.”
“Yes, I know. But you mommy, I don’t know how she does it. She’s like a machine. Like the Terminator. Nothing can stop her.”
My father picked her up from the hospital and drove home very slowly, taking side streets and avoiding busy intersections.
I had two weeks left in the semester, and I managed to finish somehow. I received mostly B’s, with a C+ in Introduction to Anthropology, the lowest grade I had ever received in any class. I decided not to tell my mother. There was no sense in pissing off a cancer patient—I didn’t want her losing any more of her hair worrying about my grades. I packed up my dorm room and left Berkeley without securing housing for next year. I figured I would sort it all out if or when I returned next fall. Part of me thought that I wouldn’t return and would remain in Los Angeles to help my family and watch my mother recover. But the other part of me knew that my mother would rather die than see me take a leave from college. She wanted me to continue with my regular life, not stopping or even slowing down for her cancer. I think I understood this, but it was frustrating nonetheless. I flew home.
My father picked me up from the airport. He seemed so old; my mother’s cancer had aged him significantly. His hair was more gray than black and his skin seemed too baggy for his bones. His eyelids drooped from worry and exhaustion, as did the skin around his mouth and chin. He gave me a hug and helped me with the luggage. For the first time ever, I noticed he didn’t smell like cigarettes and instead smelled like sweat. I wasn’t sure which was better.
“Mommy’s doing OK. She doing chemo again and doctor say she doing good. A lot happen in last five, six month. Everything go so quick.”
I realized that I had never asked how they discovered her cancer. On the car ride home, my father told me how my mother started getting tired easily and had no energy to do her daily activities, like going to the grocery store or cooking.
“She didn’t even have energy to go shopping! So I think she must be sick!”
At first they thought she had the flu, with mild aches and pains and fatigue. She took a lot of Tylenol, and when she didn’t get better, she went to see a friend from church who was a doctor. The doctor said it was probably a virus that was going around and it needed to run its course—nothing serious. Then one afternoon she took a nap and didn’t wake up, even when my father came home. Whenever she’s home, my mother always greets my father in the kitchen when he returns from the office. This time, however, she remained in bed and when my father found her, he tried to wake her. He wanted to know about dinner—he is incapable on his own in the kitchen—and she just wouldn’t wake up. My father took her to the hospital where they ran tests and found a tumor in her breast. It was the size of a tennis ball.
“It was as big as a tennis ball? That’s insane.”
I find it weird to hear stories about patients with tumors the size of softballs or baseballs or golf balls—how does that all fit in there? How do you not notice a sporting good lodged in your breast?
“We couldn’t believe it. We were so surprised. You think flu, and really it cancer. But you Mommy was so calm. She said, ‘OK, what I do now? How we can we make this better?’ Very business, but I know she was worried. She wanted surgery right away.”
My father talked about her mastectomy and the chemo and how doctors discovered she had a mild heart murmur, which complicated surgery.
“She has a heart murmur, too? Christ.”
“It very common. She had it her entire life and she never knew. She has a valve that work a little slow—a lazy valve. The doctors have to be careful in surgery and with certain medicine, that’s all. Nothing serious.”
My father seemed so calm and matter-of-fact. He talked about my mother’s cancer with the composure of someone who had hundreds of conversations about it. My parents have a lot of friends and relatives; I’m sure he had to update all of them several times a day. For him, cancer had become part of his life like a routine. But I knew from his aged face that it hadn’t been easy for him.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Oh, Annie, it OK. I don’t mind picking you up from the airport. My office is very close.”
When I arrived home, my mother greeted me in the kitchen. I was shocked. For the past few months, I had envisioned her as bald and thin, with degenerating muscles barely clinging to her frame. I imagined that her eyes, not her body, exuded the spark I heard in her voice most of the time. But to my surprise, she looked terrific. Her hair was thinner, but still considerably bushy. I could see a mass of gray roots—she hadn’t dyed it in awhile. Her skin was still soft and smooth; she has always been adept at applying make-up and made sure to moisturize every night. When I kissed her, I discovered her cheeks were still as soft as they were when I was six years old. She wore a baggy, pink flowered dress that disguised her chest bandages. I loosely wrapped my arms around her, not wanting to disturb what swelling and scarring that lay
beneath her clothes. The only noticeable change was in her movements. She walked slowly and avoided gesturing her arms wildly, something she always did to add emphasis to her words.
“Wow, Mom, you look really good. I mean really, it’s amazing.”
“Anne, you so silly. I always look good.”
“But no, you look really good.”
“You know why? Because I lose weight.”
My mother is not petite. She has an athletic build, with broad shoulders, strong arms, and long legs. She is voluptuous with wide hips and generous curves, but she never needed to lose weight. It wasn’t the inches she lost on her waistline that made her look great. Clearly, she had the look of a woman who was beating cancer—a triumphant glow. I wondered if cancer even had a chance against her. If there was a moment when she was scared of dying and leaving her family and friends behind, I didn’t know about it. She would never tell me anyway.
“You just don’t look like all the cancer patients on TV. They are really skinny and wear big scarves wrapped around their bald heads. You’re not bald.”
“No, Anne, I lose weight, I like it. I think cancer is best diet.”
“Mom, that’s horrible!”
“I tell everybody at church, get cancer so you can look like model.” She strutted a few steps, with her hands at her hips.
That summer, I spent most of my days taking care of general household duties. I did laundry and dusted and went grocery shopping. For my mother, I rented her Korean movies, brought her tea and pills, and shuttled her to the hospital. Whenever she got home from chemo, she’d shuffle straight into bed and sleep quietly. After a few hours, I’d tiptoe into her bedroom and hold my breath so I could listen for hers.
My most exhausting duty, however, was not taking care of my mother—I was happy to help in that area. It was dealing with the kitchen. My grandmother visited us two days each week and cooked meals for the entire week. When my grandmother cooks, she brings out every single plate, utensil, and pot from the dark recesses of the cabinets. She litters vegetables all over the floor, leaves fish entrails and bones on the counter, and splashes soy sauce and sesame oil all over the stove. I spent a lot of time scrubbing food and grease off every surface in the kitchen, including the walls. As I cleaned, I thought about how my family could’ve used my help while I was away at college—no one can scour a kitchen sink quite like me. I was hurt that my mother didn’t want me to see her weak and vulnerable. I guess because I was the youngest and my mother and I were close, she wanted to protect me. She thought I couldn’t handle her cancer, or maybe she was afraid that I could handle it—that I was growing up.
“Mom, you know what the worst part about your cancer is? It’s the kitchen. How does Grandma make such a mess?”
“I know, I think she crazy. She cook so much and I not so hungry.”
“But you have to eat—it’s important.”
“My medicine make me so dizzy and I throw up.”
I looked at her, wishing there was something I could do. Well, there was one thing.
“I heard from somewhere—maybe I read it or something I don’t remember—that marijuana helps with chemo. It helps you get your appetite back and stuff like that.”
She raised her eyebrows. We had never talked about drugs; it was understood that drugs were illegal and not something anyone should do. I went through D.A.R.E. in fifth grade, but I also lived in Berkeley.
“Is that right? But mari-wan illegal. Can you get mari-wan, Anne?”
I stopped. I sensed an ambush. Even though my mother was weakened with cancer, she was still sharp and capable of entrapment. There was no way my mother would smoke weed. I couldn’t imagine rolling a joint for her or teaching her how to use a bong. She didn’t even drink alcohol—she told me she always hated the taste and found no enjoyment in the effects. Was she trying to incriminate me or was I just being paranoid? She knew Berkeley’s reputation of “experimentation,” but she had no reason to believe that I had been experimenting. Why did I even bring this up?
“I don’t know where to get marijuana. It’s probably hard to get since it’s illegal. But if you’re interested, I can try to find out. There might be someone from Berkeley who’d know.”
“No, no I don’t want it. Drug very bad for you. I hope you never do it.”
My mother keeps her breast on her cosmetic table. Among the bottles of anti-wrinkle cream and toner and palettes of eye shadow, there is a gelatinous flesh-colored mound of silicon. The prosthetic doesn’t feel like a real breast—it’s much squishier and has no nipple—but it mimics the weight and shape of one. It sits in a special bra that has a soft cup for her healthy breast on one side and a special pocket for her prosthetic breast on the other side. She always wears her bra over a thin tank top because the elastic chafes the sensitive skin of her scars.
The right side of her chest, where her breast used to be, there is a wall covered in pale, soft skin. Small mounds of white scar tissue speckle the area. Underneath the thin, mottled skin, there is a layer of strong chest muscles that stretch over her chest plate, which protects her heart with a lazy valve. When the supportive bandages first came off around her chest, eight months after her mastectomy and three months after her car accident, her right shoulder kept on rising to meet her ear in an awkward half-shrug. There was no breast to weigh her shoulder down and no bandages to hold the shoulder muscles back. The muscles in her shoulder and chest had not adjusted yet. She kept on using her hand to push down her shoulder.
“It won’t go down. It make Mommy so frustrate.”
Under the guidance of her doctor, she learned exercises to help loosen the muscles in her shoulder and stretch and strengthen the muscles in her chest. The exercises were painful, I could tell by her wincing when she practiced lifting her arms straight to the side like an airplane.
“How badly does it hurt? Maybe you need to take a rest.”
“It hurt but you know, I have to do. I have no choice. I have to practice so I can play golf.”
Even after she completed chemotherapy and went into remission and her scars had healed, my mother did not want reconstructive surgery and a breast implant. She wanted that part of her body and that part of her life gone forever.
“Why I need breast? I have no baby, I not need breast, right?”
“I thought I was the baby!”
“Anne, you have your own breast.”
So her doctor fitted her with a prosthetic breast. She wears the same clothes she has always worn; she never wore low-cut blouses or dresses so the prosthetic is never a problem. She plays golf better than ever, placing in tournaments. She’s in great health; in fact, she’s probably healthier than me. When I visit her, she gives me hard hugs and crushes me against her chest, and I forget about everything.
Occasionally, when my mother is lying in bed, under her electric blanket watching TV or reading, she calls for me. She doesn’t bellow my name as she normally uses, but instead she whimpers. “Anne…Anne…you there?”
I immediately stop what I’m doing and run to her side. My mother does not tolerate weakness, so when she whimpers and groans softly in pain, I start thinking about tumors again. Maybe this time it isn’t a tennis ball, but an orange or a grapefruit growing in her body somewhere. My stomach tightens and my fists clench and my brain struggles to shut off.
“Anne?”
“I’m here, are you OK? You look pale.”
“Can you get your old, sick mother a glass of water?” she says in Korean. She smiles at me weakly.
“Are you OK? Do you want me to get you anything else?”
“No, no I’m OK. Maybe I need hot tea.”
“Just tea, anything else?”
“Maybe some chocolate.”
“OK, tea and chocolate. That’s it?”
“Cookie.” She laughs softly.
“OK, tea, chocolate, cookie.”
“And fruit.” She laughs a little louder. “Don’t forget bring knife. And napkin. Maybe you can go get
ice cream for me? I like green tea mochi from Trader Joe’s.” She explodes into laughter and claps her hands together. “I’m too lazy to get myself.”
It’s a cruel joke and I fall for it every time, but I never laugh harder.
VEGETARIAN ENOUGH
In my sophomore year high school, one of my best friends read Diet for a New America by John Robbins and decided to become vegetarian. Eating animals, Alyson explained to me, was bad for the Earth, bad for your health, and like totally bad for animals. Livestock was pumped full of antibiotics, hormones, appetite stimulants, and tranquilizers and then they were debeaked, dehorned, and castrated so they could wind up on our kitchen table and in our bodies where their flesh would slowly fester and poison us and cause heart disease, tumors, and a black soul. I did not want a black soul; I wanted to keep it fresh and yellow. Like a squash. So, I became vegetarian too. I didn’t even bother reading the book. I figured if John Robbins could convince Alyson, then he could convince me. Done and done.
“WHAT?”
“No meat. I’m vegetarian.” My mother and I were sitting on the living room floor, folding laundry. I crumpled Mike’s shirt into a tight, wrinkled ball and tossed it aside. I figured if he wasn’t going to help us, then I wasn’t going to help him. “It’s a better way of life.”
“Better for who? You not eat meat, you get very sick. Then you die.”
“Actually, you’re wrong. Meat makes people sick. It’s bad for you.”
“What you mean bad for you?”
“It causes heart attacks and stuff.”
