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

by Julie Yip-Williams

Live while you’re living, friends.

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. I promise.

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.

Many may disagree, but I have always believed, always, even when I was a precocious little girl crying alone in my bed, that 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.

The worth of a person’s life lies not in the number of years lived; rather it rests on how well that person has absorbed the lessons of that life, how well that person has come to understand and distill the multiple, messy aspects of the human experience.

To believe, to have faith in the face of self-doubt and uncertainty, is definitely the most difficult part of dealing with cancer.

But the truth is that we each enter and leave this life alone, that the experience of birth and death and all the living in between is ultimately a solitary one.

I chose to travel the world to chase euphoria.

Cancer is a force of nature that acts within the human body, just as the winds and rains from a hurricane are forces of nature that act on the earth. We are so small, insignificant, and powerless in the face of those unleashed forces in spite of the marvels of shelter and modern medicine.

there comes a time when one must recognize the futility of continuing the personal physical fight against cancer, when chemo is no longer a desirable option, when one should begin the process of saying goodbye and understand that death is not the enemy, but merely the next part of life.

Determining that time is a deliberation that each of us must make with her own heart and soul.

These are the times in life when we feel almost more than we are capable of feeling. These are the moments when—paradoxically, as we are closest to death—we are most painfully and vividly alive.

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.

Even though he and other scientifically minded people understand that control is an illusion, I suppose that illusion can be important to the preservation of a dying patient’s sanity.

For me, true inner strength lies in facing death with serenity, in recognizing that death is not the enemy but simply an inevitable part of life.

Rather, it is a paralyzed mind succumbing to the fear and unpredictability of cancer that would deny me my dreams.

In its paralysis, the mind cannot form contingency plans; it cannot be brave and bold and forward thinking; it cannot accept what is without running from what will be.

only you can determine for yourself what you are capable of;

The mind selects, enhances, and betrays; happenings fade from memory; people forget one another and, in the end, all that remains is the journey of the soul, those rare moments of spiritual revelation. What actually happened isn’t what matters, only the resulting scars and distinguishing marks.

Time’s amnesiac power is necessary and healthy, for it encourages life and living, allowing room for new experiences and new emotions, which come with engaging in the present and being vested in the future, and places our memories where they should be—in the past, to be accessed when we need and want them.

We live every day not in the shadow of greatness and grandeur but within the confines of our small but seemingly enormous lives. It is a natural way to be; after all, we must live our 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 come...

It is in the acceptance of truth that real wisdom and peace come.