A crossroads is a place where multiple roads converge, and is a point at which a decision needs to be made about what road to take as one continues on the journey. Which way to go? When my final day of chemo arrived, on January 13, it certainly felt like a crossroads, a decision point where scans would soon follow and Josh, my doctor, and I would have to decide what to do next. So somehow it felt right that I should end up at Times Square, known as it is (ostentatiously) as the Crossroads of the World.
January 13 felt like a momentous day—Cousin N, who is like a sister to me, had flown from Los Angeles the day before to be with me for the last session and to spend the week; Cousin C, who is also like a sister to me and who lives in Connecticut, left her young children for twenty-four hours (something she hadn’t done in four years) to sleep over the night before so she could come with me to chemo as well. My actual sister, Lyna (who lives in New York City), also came to spend the night—Lyna and Cousin N slept on the full-size air mattress, and Cousin C took the couch.
As we like to remind each other often in a half-joking way (especially when one seems to have become spoiled by her soft life), no matter how Americanized we have become, we can never forget that we came to this country on a sinking boat from Vietnam and should have no problems sleeping on couches, air mattresses, and floors; a carpeted floor covered by a flat cotton sheet was where we slept often as children, with not even the padding of a sleeping bag—what did a bunch of Vietnamese refugees know about sleeping bags?
That night, Josh stayed home with Mia and Belle, and we four Yip girls went out to a dinner of fancy Asian fusion fare at a restaurant in the South Slope, opened by a Top Chef winner, laughing and gossiping just as we used to when we were little girls, except now we gossiped and complained about our aging Chinese parents, husbands, children, money, careers (or the sudden disappearance thereof), and all the stuff of ever-impending middle-aged adulthood. It felt so comfortable and yet poignant; how sad that it took something like my last session of chemotherapy for advanced colon cancer to bring us together again without boyfriends and husbands and children, in a way we hadn’t been in more than twenty years.
While in the cab to the restaurant, as we all stared and giggled at the scantily dressed girls freezing their butts off hurrying to a Jay-Z concert, I had one of those strange passing sensations in which I felt removed from my body and observed this current scene of my life as if I were watching a play on a stage, speculating about whether my character would suffer some tragic ending in the play’s denouement. I wondered if one day, perhaps not so far away, my sisters would reunite again without me, and if they would remember that particular moment of laughter. And where would I be?
Cancer has made me hold these precious scenes of my life against my heart like they’re my very own children; that’s how much I cherish them. And while those scenes can make me feel a longing I’ve never known, they also make me feel an unparalleled joy and appreciation.
During dinner, Cousin N casually mentioned that she needed to meet one of her “reps” at Times Square at 10:30 the next morning. Cousin N is in advertising; she buys and plans media for a major motion picture studio, meaning she decides where to buy and how to use advertising space (e.g., TV and radio commercials, magazine ads, posters in subway stations, et cetera) for blockbusters and every other kind of movie this studio produces. She has become a big muckety-muck, overseeing large teams of young assistants who do her bidding. “No problem,” I said. “Whatever you need to do for your job.” Chemo was scheduled for 12:30, so we would have plenty of time.
The next morning, after Cousins N and C accompanied me to drop Mia off at school—my sister had left early for work—we made our way to Forty-seventh Street and Broadway and stood in front of the red steps that are just south of the famous TKTS booth, where tourists line up for hours to buy half-price tickets for Broadway shows. Times Square is normally a place I avoid like the plague, filled with tourists who walk too slowly and too many flashing lights; it’s a place that can overwhelm in seconds. But it was early on a Monday morning, so it was relatively sane, devoid of the usual mob and the oversize Elmo, Dora, and other characters clamoring for their photos to be taken in exchange for five bucks, and devoid of other crazies like the Naked Cowboy (who goes around even in the dead of winter with nothing on but cowboy boots, underwear, a cowboy hat, and a guitar). Cousin N was talking to Joel, her rep, a few feet away while I was engaged in a heated conversation with Cousin C about how she should make sure her children are appropriately exposed to their Chinese cultural heritage.
Suddenly, my best friend, S.J., showed up. What a coincidence! I went on and on to her about how really small New York City is despite being home to 8 million souls. Just then, I saw Josh walking toward me, and I was equally amazed to see him. “Oh my God!” I shouted. “Times Square really is the crossroads of the world!” And then I saw my sister approaching. Before I could open my mouth to demand to know what was going on, Cousin N told me to turn around. “Look!” she said.
Please note that when you tell a legally blind person—or at least this legally blind person—to look!, it engenders a certain panic. Add to that the Times Square environment, where there is an infinite number of things to look at and even more panic, and you fear you won’t see what everyone wants you to see. But even I couldn’t miss the giant screen featuring an enormous picture of me when I turned around.
There it was, along with, in letters as big as me: CONGRATS JULIE, ON YOUR LAST CHEMO SESSION TODAY! WE LOVE YOU! The picture was up for a long time, four minutes maybe. And then Cousin N announced, “But wait, there’s more!” More? I wasn’t sure I could handle more! Joel gave the thumbs-up to the invisible people looking down at us from somewhere above, and the picture disappeared and the live camera feed went on and there I was on the digital billboard with Josh by my side, along with Cousin N, Cousin C, Sister Lyna, S.J., and of course Joel. And then the people who couldn’t resist the allure of seeing themselves on the big screen in Times Square came swarming in, like moths to a flame. The camera zoomed in on me and Josh, and I covered my face in embarrassment. While Josh might look like a politician on camera with his polished wave, I am no politician’s wife, uncomfortable underneath the weight of all that attention.
Cousin N and Joel had orchestrated the whole thing. Joel and his company sell time on the digital billboards in Times Square. N told him what was happening with me, and he was apparently so moved that he insisted on doing something special. I can only imagine how much advertising revenue Joel’s company sacrificed in order to put up an ad about a cancer patient on her last day of chemo. I wrapped my arms around him, and much to my surprise, I wept uncontrollably into his wool coat.
You see, I am not so old that I have forgotten the deeply rooted feelings of being unwanted, and so I still don’t know what to do with kindness. This gesture from my cousin and her friend was moving enough, but the fact that it was a visual gesture, and on such a grand scale, well, that made my knees buckle.
My mother had my siblings go to Chinese school to learn Mandarin Chinese after regular school, but never me. You won’t be able to read the Chinese characters, she told me. Fifth Uncle took my siblings and cousins to see Star Wars: Return of the Jedi in the theater, but not me. “Why don’t I get to go?” I asked my sister. Because you might not be able to see the screen, she said. (Translation: no one wants to waste money on you.) Once when I was nine, Cousins N and C and my sister all got to go to San Francisco to visit Fourth Uncle and I didn’t get to go. Why? I asked my mother. Because you can’t see like everyone else, and no one will take care of you was her response. From a young age, I felt marginalized; I felt defective because I was told through actions and words that I was defective.
So I spent many years proving that I could see well enough to go to the movies, to travel the world on my own, to study Chinese (I lived in China during my junior year in college, and became fluent). I did it all for many reasons, but mostly it was to prove my own worth to myself and my family. I felt as if I had to prove myself into existence every day, because my existence was a proposition that had early on been very much in doubt. At some point, when I had accomplished all that I had dreamed of accomplishing and indeed gotten married and had children and done those things that everyone once said I wouldn’t be able to do, I began to feel self-worth and love from within as well as from without. But to a large degree, I could never let go of those feelings of being unwanted and unloved, so ingrained had they been in me from such a tender age.
I’m pretty sure that feelings of insecurity are nearly universal. I see the insecurity already in my children, even though they have had the benefit of nurturing teachers and (I’d like to think) nurturing parents. I’m always amazed at how the beautiful and intelligent never feel quite beautiful or intelligent enough, how people constantly agonize over not being thin enough or charming enough. And all of these things matter—beauty, intelligence, weight, and hundreds of other criteria by which people judge themselves—because these are the characteristics people select to determine whether they’re indeed desirable and lovable.
Ultimately, we all have a constant need to be accepted and loved in this world, to feel connected to the communities represented by networks of family, friends, colleagues, church, and the other groups that surround us. To belong, to matter to someone, to feel comfort. It’s almost as if the fear of being unloved is part of our genetic makeup, or maybe it is deeper even than that, and is endemic to being born human on a tiny rock floating through infinity. That realization is enough to make even the least self-aware person a little insecure about what it all means, and what our role in this passion play might be. Ironically and rather unexpectedly, cancer has proven to be most effective in chasing away my insecurities, allowing me to shed almost completely those old and painful feelings of unlovability.
How funny that one of the two greatest challenges of my life—my visual disability—should make me feel so unloved, and that the other greatest challenge of my life—this cancer—should rectify that, resoundingly.
I am humbled. That unwanted and unworthy little girl is truly baffled by all these acts of love.