Here is the creative nonfiction (CNF) story of a lifetime. Well…of MY lifetime.

The original of this CNF (creative nonfiction) piece was written for a class assignment. I think that out of all the genres, CNF is my favourite and the most rewarding, but it’s also the most difficult to write. You’d think writing down the truth from your perspective would be easy, but it is soul-wrenching. It is mentally exhausting. It makes me cry and relive my experiences moment-by-moment. Maybe I should just write about the good times, hey?

The story was originally published in Soliloquies Anthology issue 21.1. You should check out their fantastic selections. This is a student-led publication through the Concordia University in Montreal . I had the most fabulous experience with their editor, Zeya. She helped bring out the “soap opera” quality I’d insinuated in the title. If you’re reading this, thanks again, Zeya!

Enjoy!

Soap Opera, Starring Rachel Kim

The world returns in gauzy confusion. My throat feels as though I’ve inhaled a roomful of acrid gas. I attempt to open my eyelids, but they are too heavy, and I can’t lift my arms either. Life has finally managed to pin me down. Pain spreads its fingers into my chest and claws at my throat when I cough.

Through the fogginess, I understand the essence of this situation: I am still alive. Although my facial muscles are frozen, on the inside I smile. I will get to hold Jesse’s tiny hand in my own again. The thought of my precious brown-eyed son calms the qualms of my latest tragedy. The image I conjure up of his gaze, intense and wise since the first time I held him in my arms, and the tiny scar above his upper lip are an emotional salve. I won’t let my husband Yang Sop bring him to the hospital; I refuse to let Jesse see me hooked up to machines. We’ve simply told him Mama is getting the rotten spot removed. It must be naptime at the daycare right now. Or maybe not; I’m not sure how long I’ve been laying here. I imagine Jesse’s sturdy hands reviving me as he imitates his father’s acupressure techniques, his warm fingertips brushing against my corpse-frozen features until the icy sheen on my eyelids melts away.

Sound becomes less muffled: there is a whooshing in my ears and a steady beeping nearby mimics the cadence of my heartbeat. I hear the rhythm pound against my temples and force my shallow breaths to cooperate with the chorus line. My eyelids are freed and I am no longer lying on the cold metal table in the cavernous room with fluorescent lights glaring down on me.

I will my arms to move, but they lie like dismembered stumps at my side. I sense their heaviness, a lead apron over me. I blink and try to move my head, but the best I can do is angle my line of vision downwards. There is nothing but a thin white sheet restraining me. When my fingers and toes finally agree to wiggle on command, I smile again, a slight lift at the corners of my mouth. I notice someone standing at the foot of my snowy bed. He looks like an angel hovering in the mist; I swallow my urge to chuckle. The truth is that I am flying high. I am in my own personal soap opera. I am the strong female lead who has survived.

“Did you take the whole lung, doctor?” I ask with a wonderfully dramatic swoon. Although I can’t manage to lift my arm, mentally I drape it across my forehead.

“Yes, I’m afraid we had to,” Dr. Bigsby responds, “We attempted the sleeve resection, but the tumour destroyed too much of the upper bronchial tube.” He moves to the side of my bed, so I can see that fuzzy caterpillars have crawled into a furrow at the bridge of his nose.. He checks something on the beeping machines, writes another something on his clipboard, and then asks, “Would you like to see your family?”

“Yes. Yes, Doctor, send them in,” I sigh amidst the beeping machine.

***

My family gathers around my bed. Yang Sop, cast as the stoically handsome hero and muscular bodyguard, holds one hand. My mother, the matriarch faithfully holding up the floodgates and not letting the quiver of her chin betray her angst, takes the other. My older brother Lynn, the travel-weary rebel in a black leather jacket, stands at my feet. It hurts to see their faces so solemn. I imagine my younger brother and sister pacing the antiseptic linoleum in the waiting room: Roxanne wrings her hands, tears streaming down her lily-white face as she prays to the rosary; Ron, a dreadlocked ne’er-do-well, shakes his fist and rants at the injustice of it all. Cancer, the invisible villain, lurks in the shadows.

“Hey, Rachel, is there anything I can do for you?” Lynn asks. I love the way he always says my name in French. He’s a tough-looking softy, a cross between a Viking and a biker; a bad-ass Jesus. His helplessness must be killing him.

“You could massage my feet…” I manage. It takes everything to keep a calm façade. I watch my foot-phobic brother rub my frozen feet. Raucous laughter threatens to tumble from my mouth onto the starched bed sheets, so I clamp it shut.

Once I recompose my thoughts and have cinched the punch line, I whisper, “Gather round.” It is so hard not to giggle; one of these beeping machines must be delivering some merry-making drugs. “I have something important to say. I have a Korean name,” I say.

A raging forest fire blazes up my throat. I am surprised no flames escape my lips. My family looks around at one another, their eyebrows raised quizzically. They shrug their shoulders.

“Kim One-Lung,” I tell them, bursting into a fit of giggles, relieved to reveal the ruse.

For the first time, pain sears the left side of my body. I wheeze and gasp, struggling to siphon air back into my withered lung. My family’s voice rises with emotion. Knee-slapping laughter buries the tears we’ve been resolute not to shed. For two years the doctors had said it was all in my head, until I met Dr. Juliana. On my twenty-fifth birthday I found out I had cancer–and everything finally made sense. My family’s been holding their breath for two months.

I close my eyes.

“What does it mean?” I ask Yang Sop, my voice barely audible. My eyelids have grown so heavy I can hardly keep them open.

My husband frowns a little, then a slow grin spreads across his face until his eyes are almost swallowed up by his high cheekbones. I’ve always loved the gusto behind his expressions, but I haven’t seen much of it since Dr. Juliana called.

“It means ‘the root of wisdom’,” he says, and the toothy smile I’ve missed softens his angular face. He squeezes my hand. We just might survive.

“It’s perfect,” I say, but I’m not sure if the thought makes it past my lips.

My brother squeezes my foot, and I drift off.