The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After

by Julie Yip-Williams

Somehow, we grow up thinking that there should be fairness, that people should be treated fairly, that there should be equality of treatment as well as opportunity.

Life is not fair. You would be foolish to expect fairness, at least when it comes to matters of life and death, matters outside the scope of the law, matters that cannot be engineered or manipulated by human effort, matters that are distinctly the domain of God or luck or fate or some other unknowable, incomprehensible force.

For a child, there is nothing worse than being different, in that negative, pitiful way.

But I do know that there is incredible value in pain and suffering, if you allow yourself to experience it, to cry, to feel sorrow and grief, to hurt. Walk through the fire and you will emerge on the other end, whole and stronger.

You will understand that nothing lasts forever, not pain, or joy. You will understand that joy cannot exist without sadness. Relief cannot exist without pain. Compassion cannot exist without cruelty. Courage cannot exist without fear. Hope cannot exist without despair. Wisdom cannot exist without suffering. Gratitude cannot exist without deprivation. Paradoxes abound in this life. Living is an exercise in navigating within them.

our purpose in this life is to experience everything we possibly can, to understand as much of the human condition as we can squeeze into one lifetime, however long or short that may be. We are here to feel the complex range of emotions that come with being human. And from those experiences, our souls expand and grow and learn and change, and we understand a little more about what it really means to be human. I call it the evolution of the soul.

I allowed that pain and suffering to define me, to change me, but for the better.

In the years since my diagnosis, I have known love and compassion that I never knew possible; I have witnessed and experienced for myself the deepest levels of human caring, which humbled me to my core and compelled me to be a better person. I have known a mortal fear that was crushing, and yet I overcame that fear and found courage.

I want to find someone who will love me until the end of my days with an uncompromising and unparalleled love.”

Each time my heart is broken in this war, out of a primal sense of self-preservation, I vow that I will never allow myself to feel that kind of debilitating disappointment, devastation, and pain again. I can’t bear it, I tell myself. It is in the darkest moments with cancer and as I recover from the latest defeat that I say “Fuck hope” and forbid my mind and heart from creating happy visions of a distant future that is entirely unlikely. I’m afraid to hope. And so in those moments, I don’t cling to hope to sustain me as so many say I should. Rather, I reject it.

Hope is a funny thing, though. It seems to have a life and will of its own; it is irrepressible, its very existence inextricably tied to our spirit, its flame, no matter how weak, not extinguishable.

I needed to toughen up; I needed to change my expectations if I was going to get through the inevitable future setbacks; otherwise, I would be destroyed emotionally.

Nothing hurts quite as much as young love, when it seemed like my entire sense of self-worth was tied to these guys who so brutally rejected me, leaving me feeling utterly unlovable. Each

We decide for ourselves how to deal with what we have been given; it’s our choice, she had said. For so long, I had been overly concerned with figuring out the purpose and reason for the oh-so-terrible circumstances of my birth, the universe’s plan for me, and what was going to come next, so much that I had discounted the importance of free choice.

The sense that we ever had control over any of this seems nothing but a mockery now, a cruel illusion. And also, a lesson: we control nothing. Well, that’s not exactly true. We control how good we are to people. We control how honest we are with ourselves and others. We control the effort we have put into living. We control how we respond to impossible news. And when the time comes, we control the terms of our surrender.

Absolution is difficult. Sometimes it just isn’t possible. Pity is one thing. Forgiveness is something else altogether.

I’ve spent thousands of dollars on supplements, herbs, and cannabis, based on Dr. Chang’s recommendations or on the Internet success story du jour, or whatever link someone shared on some forum.

Albert Camus, who wrote: In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

We live every day not in the shadow of greatness and grandeur but within the confines of our small but seemingly enormous lives.

And then things happen that jerk us out of our complacency and make us feel small and powerless again. But I have learned that in that powerlessness comes truth, and in truth comes a life lived consciously.

In our life together I learned so many lessons from her, but none more so than this: It is in the acceptance of truth that real wisdom and peace come. It is in the acceptance of truth that real living begins. Conversely, avoidance of truth is the denial of life.