All in the Family

Some articles are really easy to write. An interview with Jenna Ushkowitz, a star of Glee, a show I not only manage to catch every week but spare two to three tweets every week in anticipation of? Yea. You can bet the article's a breeze to concoct.

But some are a bit tougher. How tough? Think a young single mother undergoing stage 3 of a very rare form of cancer. Yea. You heave that sigh.

When I was assigned this article, all my skills as a journalist was put to the test. I had to conduct extensive research muddling through the complex medical terms and scientific causes to the cancer. I needed to be a sensitive interviewer, asking intelligent, tactful questions and listening patiently and sympathetically to the oft-teary-eyed responses.

The ordeal of this interview took a toll on me physically and mentally. The entire weekend I was working on the article, I was sad, moody and dissonant. And can you blame me? It's a difficult story to tell.

Adding to the challenge was my own family's experience with cancer.

My grandpa had battled with stage 3 of pancreatic cancer on and off for the past 4 years. He underwent extensive surgery 3 times. He underwent chemotherapy. He pees out of a bag now. His butt always hurts.

My family is very close. Like unusually close. Like we all wish we lived right next door to each other and can see each other all the time and are each other's best friends and love love LOVE each other close. To have my grandfather, the grand patriarch of our line, be struck with such a fatal and (at the time) foreign killer was life-altering.

I wish I could write in words how much my grandfather's cancer changed our family. But I really can't. Words won't do. It's in everyday things. Like how my grandma has a really hard time smiling. Whereas before she was a twinkly-eyed, saucy old lady (and I mean that in the sincerest of ways), she now cries for no reason at all in the middle of everything. Or how my parents can't even fathom the idea of taking a night off to eat dinner somewhere in the city, let alone take a vacation. Every single birthday for the last couple of years has been celebrated either at home or at a Chinese restaurant nearby because of my grandpa's illness.

My own behavior has not been the most honorable. I would not win the "Best Granddaughter Award" by any means. I spent the last couple of years rebelling, shedding my overachieving ways, partying (and puking) my guts out, trying this and that out, traveling as far far away as I possibly could every chance I got.

"I just want to lead a normal college life, like all my friends. Is that too much to ask?" I would ask my cell phone emblazoned with my mom's phone number calling me at 11 in the evening and hastily shut it off. I even have the indent of a cartilage piercing to show you how bad to the bones I was.

By the grace of God, my grandfather miraculously overcame his cancer (dude, I have to reiterate, surgery THREE times in the past four year, on anyone, let alone a 80-something y/o man, is a miracle) and I (think) overcame my bad girls ways. He and my grandmother are currently vacationing in Hong Kong right now and for the first time in ages, I actually heard my mom utter the words, "I'm kind of bored." (I submitted her for a commercial to help her kill time, he he).

I'm living at home with my parents full-time and we have this refreshingly pleasant relationship that I cherish to the maximus. Are there times where I want to take the next flight to New York and get away from them as fast as I can? Of course. But it doesn't happen as much as often and I'm-dare I say this-even having fun hanging out with them. My dad's funny. Did you know that? I didn't know he could be. I think I get my humor from him.

Who knows how long this time of peace will last? I'm just grateful it's even here at all.