bag of precious cherries

it is pouring hopelessly. we are having the rainy season. rightly so. yesterday, my mother called me, saying i should visit her to get some cherries, which her friend had kindly brought her. the season of japanese cherries is so short. that’s why it’s so precious, naturally so expensive. and i’ve come to think, i had no single cherry last year. because i was away. i know i tend to cast my mind back too much, even so, i do have something i don’t want to recall. as a matter of fact, last year yesterday, i left home for a hospital that was miles away from home. i was told by my doctors to be there for some three months. i was diagnosed with cancer.
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that was found on my second visit to my local hospital in mid may after taking a series of various tests and scans. my worst case scenarios had never come true. but that was an exception. oddly enough, while listening to my doctor, i was calm and collected. when i came home, i broke into tears all alone for the first time, looking up at the evening sky and cursing my stars behind the dark clouds from my balcony. in fact, i lost my father to cancer. these days, many people have cancer. but why should i be one of them? i was despair. every morning when i woke up in my bed, nothing seemed changed, so i would think, and even rethink, what the doctor told me was just a dream. a few minutes later, as my brain started working i would have to learn it was not. i was sad. so sad.
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having to tell that to my children, mother in particular, and all the people i love was the hardest duty i’d ever acted in my life. my cancer was stage 3-b. my tumour had grown too big, too difficult, so it was too risky, too late to operate. besides, it turned out that my local hospital had little confidence with my case. if there were chances somewhere else, i had no choice not to take, did i? i forced myself to check into a more specialised hospital on the foot of mt. fuji, at my doctor’s suggestion, to undergo an unusual method of radio-chemotherapy.
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come what may, i’d never regret anything i've done…that’s what i felt. i was ready for anything, even for the worst. on the other hand, i was determined to fight. while i resigned myself to the fate, i smiled and laughed, trying to look as fine or at least normal as possible. crying or pitying wouldn’t do any good in any case, you know. so everyone in the hospital would always puzzle over why i was there.
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i am home now, writing this and that, in pretty good shape. luckily enough, i've survived the cancer. well, so far. under the unluckiest circumstance the luckiest thing was a discovery: i happened to know that i was cared and loved by much more people than i thought. many, many people! i never could thank them enough for their love and compassion for me when I was having a plight. i never take anything for granted anymore. * this morning, i found sad news that tasha tudor passed away last wednesday when i browsed the new york times. she was 92. she lived out gracefully. i’d always longed for her lifestyle. my chancy life could never be like hers at all, though. life is no bag of cherries, i mean. at any rate, i should celebrate her great life as well as my own life (on kind of like borrowed time?) with these precious cherries!
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