[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] Mom, you know I love you, right?
I know, Anne, I know. Everyone know.
Because I don t know what I d do without you.
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The Be s t Di e t
Oh Anne, you sound so . . . so . . . what word you always say
when you see bad movie on TV. Like movie about man who drink
too much. Then he get divorce and life so sad. His life so much
trouble and everybody cry and you get headache?
Cheesy?
Yes, yes, you sound very cheese. Promise me you not worry.
Promise me you ll tell me everything.
Just as my mother had pestered me with incessant phone calls
when I first started school, I began running up my phone bills. I
called every hour to find out how her chemotherapy was going,
what she was eating, what medications she was taking, or what
she was watching on TV. She explained that therapy was going
slowly and her hair was falling out, but she didn t mind so much.
( I have so much hair before, you can t tell it get thin. ) My grand-
mother made her favorite meals, especially baked mackerel and
bean sprout soup. She took all her medications, whatever was on
her nightstand. She forgot what all of them did; she just knew
when to take them. She started watching American soap operas
but found them hard to follow. I offered to watch them and explain
each episode, but she didn t like the idea because it interfered with
my studying.
A few weeks passed and just as she was coping with the nau-
sea and fatigue from chemo, she developed swelling and an infec-
tion in the scar tissue where surgeons had removed her breast. She
went to the hospital to get the area drained and then she had an
allergic reaction to the anesthetic. Within minutes she ran a fever
and developed bright red hives all over her body. I called her at
the hospital.
Oh I so itch, Annie. Itch everywhere. The itchy worse than
cancer. Even on my face! All I want is scratch everything. You
should have seen Mommy. Like mosquito bite all over. And I so
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happy birthday or whatever
hot. I sweat like crazy person. My pajama get so wet. But doctor
gave me medicine and I feel better now.
Well I m glad someone feels better.
The doctors instructed her to stay in the hospital for two
nights, though she wanted to recover at home. She wanted to read
in her own bed with the comfortable king-sized mattress and down
pillows, not the twin-sized adjustable mattress with bars on the
side. The hospital s reading selection, she explained to me, was
boring. She preferred her trashy Korean novels over the self-help
cancer survival books or healthy lifestyle magazines. She wanted
my grandmother s comforting stone-pot stews, not the institution-
alized meals that came divided into four sections on a plate. ( Why
hospital food have so much potato? ) My mother hated spending
more time at the hospital than she had to she already visited the
doctor every week to receive chemo drips and check-ups. Still,
the rest of my family liked having her in the hospital because the
around-the-clock patient care gave us a sense of security, a feeling
we rarely felt.
After my mother s infection was under control, her sister-
in-law picked her up to drive her home. As my mother and aunt
were driving through an intersection just a few miles away from
my parents home, a driver ran through a red light and crashed
into the side of their mini-van. My aunt was shaken up, but fine.
My mother, however, was not as lucky. The impact and the seat
belt damaged her chest tissue, which was still recovering from the
infection. An ambulance picked her up and she was readmitted
into the hospital. She needed surgery again.
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
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The Be s t Di e t
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 vaca-
tion 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.
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happy birthday or whatever
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 fin-
ish somehow. I received mostly B s, with a C+ in Introduction to
Anthropology, the lowest grade I had ever received in any class. I
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