Back to Before

In December of 2019, my precious Mama died. The circumstances leading up to her death and the fallout afterwards were traumatic and painful. Her funeral was in America, far from home, a couple days before my Christmas Eve birthday. I had always loved Christmas an extraordinary amount — my business cards used to say “Storyteller and Christmas Tree Whisperer.” My birthday, and the story of how I was born right before the clock struck midnight on my first Christmas, has always made me feel special and unique. Losing my mother at my favorite time of year was a brutal shock which drained all color from the holiday season.

Just weeks after returning home to Hong Kong, we heard whispers of a virus north of us in the city of Wuhan, China. Hong Kong’s borders quickly closed, shutting us inside. Still in deep mourning for my mother, I watched from afar as friends and family members abroad began dying during the Covid pandemic. The world lost millions of other mothers, plus fathers, cousins, and children. I deeply struggled with so much loss piling up, falling into a deep pit of despair and depression.

My birthday and Christmas became triggers of sorrow and pain rather than the sources of exuberant joy they’d always represented before. I tiptoed around them as if they were landmines set to explode at any moment. I could find no relief, no respite. In desperation, I sought a therapist with trauma experience and spent three years doing hard work to heal from the recurring theme of loss in my life. It was a worthy investment, giving me useful tools to deal with the residual anxiety and depression surrounding my compounding grief.

In early 2024, my husband Michael gently reminded me it would be both the five year anniversary of my mother’s death plus a major milestone birthday for me that year, and asked what I’d like to do to mark the occasion. I shocked us both by saying I’d love a three week trip across Europe, hitting as many festive Christmas markets as time and energy would allow. Instead of spending yet another year gently stepping around the season I used to love so much, I wanted to rip the bandage off and dive back in headfirst.

And did we ever! We hit nearly one hundred glorious Christmas markets while visiting 14 cities in 10 countries in 20 days. It was exhausting and exhilarating and completely exceeded every expection. I took tons of notes and journaled extensively, thinking maybe there was a book idea in there… the story of overcoming heavy grief and sorrow while redeeming my favorite time of year, traveling by train from one end of Europe to the other and back again. I’d spent most of 2023 and 2024 doing extensive research on grief for an unrelated project, and knew I had plenty more to say on the topic. I felt hopeful about sharing my story, how I found beauty could indeed come from ashes.

We returned to Hong Kong in time for an epic early birthday party on Saturday, December 21st. Michael had been planning it for over six months, making deposits and signing contracts well ahead of time so all we would need to do is show up. Beloved friends from all over Asia joined us for breakfast and a screening of my favorite film which ended with a surprise visit from a bagpiper in full Scottish regalia. It was a spectacular day surrounded by people I deeply care for.

At one point I briefly stepped away. When I returned I saw all these precious friends, most of which had only met each other that morning, chatting and laughing, taking photos together in the Photo Booth, exchanging Instagram accounts, having a great time. I paused a moment to take it all in, to memorize all the little details to hold in my heart, to recognize the absence of any lingering pain. After overcoming so much sorrow and sadness it was an absolute wonder to feel only joy. Later, when they rolled in a cart covered in tiny cupcakes and a tall birthday candle, my wish would be cheesy but heartfelt: I wish to remember this time, this happiness for all the rest of my life.

The day after my big birthday party, Michael was exhausted. We were meant to take our oldest son Christmas shopping while our youngest was at work, but my husband could barely keep his eyes open. I told him to stay home and rest. We joked a bit about the effects of jet lag and the rapid pace of our epic trip across Europe on our aging bodies, and then I took off to brave the packed malls of Hong Kong on the last weekend shopping day before Christmas. That night I wrote in my journal about Michael’s exhaustion and a lingering cough, and my hopes that it wouldn’t be anything serious.

Monday morning Michael left for work, more fatigued than the day before. We were meant to have dinner at a friend’s house that evening, and I told him I could go alone if he preferred to come home early and rest. An hour later he nearly collapsed at work. I felt an overwhelming sense of unease. Jet lag is one thing, nearly passing out climbing a set of stairs is altogether different. I texted my friend to say it was unlikely either of us would be attending her dinner. Then I called my husband to say he needed to leave work and head immediately to the emergency room. The next day was Christmas Eve, my birthday, and though it would just be a chill family day with tacos and cake, I didn’t want any stress hanging over our heads for that or for Christmas. Let’s get this checked to put our minds at ease, I told him.

The Emergency Room at our small island hospital had a two hour wait, but Michael was ushered into a doctor’s presence immediately. He had a chest x-ray, an EKG, and they put in an IV to take blood. Within thirty minutes, the doctor (with a west-coast American accent and a story about how he works part of each year in Seattle), said that despite the inconvenient timing with the holiday, he was going to recommend admitting Michael and then transferring him to a larger hospital overnight to run additional diagnostic tests. The doctor thought it was an issue with his heart and wasn’t comfortable sending him home to wait and see. I braced myself to have a small argument with my husband, who would surely say no, don’t make a fuss, I’m just tired… but he surprised me by saying okay.

We had about two hours before the nearby hospital would transfer him to the larger one, so I called our sons and asked them to meet us for a quick dinner before they took Michael. I cancelled the birthday dinner reservation for tacos the next day, and instead we had fajitas from a place by the hospital while trying to downplay our fears to our questioning kids. After eating, we grabbed milkshakes at Shake Shack and took a selfie, letting it stand in for the birthday cake we probably wouldn’t have the next day.

The boys went home while Michael and I returned to the hospital to wait for his transfer. The original doctor came and found us, telling us without ever once meeting our eyes that he was glad Michael would be going to the larger hospital, as the initial blood tests were coming back, and there was something “wonky” with the white blood cells which would need to be looked at more carefully. He scurried away and I pushed down a sense of panic over the lack of eye contact and the word wonky… He’d previously said heart problem, but my mind kept trying to alert me to something I’d read at some point, about what a white blood cell problem might mean. I refused to google it. There’s a reason people say ignorance is bliss, and it was almost my birthday so why borrow trouble?

Michael spent a very uncomfortable night on a gurney in a hallway on the packed and noisy general men’s ward at Princess Margaret Hospital. I woke early to his message telling me visiting hours started at 11:30 a.m. It was my birthday, so I splurged on a taxi to the hospital joking via text that it was my gift, a lil’ birthday treat. I was still ten minutes away when he texted me two words that changed everything:

I’m screwed.

A doctor had reviewed all Michael’s blood tests from the first hospital, had the lab run them again, then dropped the news while he was sitting all alone in a busy hallway. Michael did not have a heart problem. He had Acute Leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Aggressive, deadly. The exact subtype was still unclear at that moment, but the diagnosis was… well, it was not good.

I arrived moments later, ran to his uncomfortable gurney in the hallway of the general men’s ward, climbed up next to him and wrapped my arms around him. We just cried and cried and said I’m sorry to one another over and over and over as tiny new horrors about our situation popped up. After a few minutes I said enough, no more apologizing. We can be scared, we can be sad, we can be angry, we can be a thousand other things, but this was no one’s fault.

The doctor who had dropped the diagnosis like a bomb came back around and explained to me everything she’d already said to Michael. She told us he’d be transferred downstairs to the Hematology Ward, they’d do more testing to determine which kind of Acute Leukemia it was before diving into aggressive treatment tailored to the exact subtype — Myeloid or Lymphoblastic. Without treatment, she bluntly informed us, Acute Leukemia has a life expectancy of one to three months. How much time had already passed, we wondered? Was the cancer there the whole time we were in Europe? Was it there when we took our Christmas card photo mid-November?

In the blink of an eye the visiting hour was over, and I begged for just a little more time. It’s my birthday, I cried, my husband was just diagnosed with cancer… we have so much we need to discuss… please, just a few more minutes!

We quickly made a plan: I would go home and tell our oldest son in person, and we would return together for the evening visiting hour with a few items from home to make Michael more comfortable. I would text our youngest son at work, ask him to meet us at the hospital when he finished up so I could tell him in person before we went in to see Michael. I would text my Dad, already asleep on America’s West Coast, and ask him to call me the minute he woke up so I could tell him on FaceTime. I would text our friend Karla, who is also a pastor at our church. I would text the LaTour’s whose dinner party we had missed the night before, who happen to be pastors at another church. I dreaded sharing the awful update with each of them, and feared widening the circle of people who knew — I didn’t want to ruin anyone else’s Christmas Eve with our horrific, unbelievable news.

I finally dragged myself away from my husband, leaving my entire life up until that hour in what had just become our before. We were now on the other side, in the dark and hazy after, still numb with shock. At least the date would be easy to remember.

Even as my stomach churned with anxiety over what we were walking into, I could recognize gratitude for the timing of everything which had come just before: we’d just returned from the most awesome European Christmas Market trip of my wildest dreams, which I’d documented in great detail, taking thousands of photos! We’d just had a truly epic party where our guests sang Happy Birthday to me accompanied by a bagpipe, and somehow I had the presence of mind in the middle of it to just stand there and really feel all the joy I’d been missing for years!

I hated everything about the timing of Michael’s cancer diagnosis, but I loved that somehow we’d been able to have the fullest, most beautiful birthday and Christmas season of my life, all the way up until that very day. I may have found myself sitting in the ashes once again, but there was, there is, still beauty to cling to, and more still to come.