It started on Halloween. I was seven. There was a party at our house, and the kids were all buzzed on sugar. My older brother and his friends ran around pretending to be Jedi knights, but my parents were strangely quiet. Looking at their faces, I wondered if somebody was in trouble. That night, as I was falling asleep, I saw my dad lingering in the doorway for what seemed too long. He then came in and sat on the edge of my bed. He whispered something about me growing up and having a family of my own. He said he was afraid of missing everything, not being there. He mumbled about not seeing me in a graduation cap, in a wedding gown. I didn’t know what he was talking about. A week later, when he and my mom packed up and left for Hong Kong, all I understood was that they were going far away and that nobody knew for how long. My little brother and I sat on their feet and hugged their legs, trying to prevent them from leaving.

It didn’t work. My parents were headed for Hong Kong so that my dad could receive treatment from specialists there. He had been diagnosed with cancer. It was already very advanced. I had no idea that a doctor had given my dad one year to live any more than I knew what “nasopharyngeal carcinoma” meant (like I said, I was seven). I just felt confused and abandoned. I had never been away from either of my parents for very long, and suddenly they were both gone.

My grandmother came and stayed with us. She did her best to take care of us, but even with her and my brothers there, the dinner table felt empty. I missed my mother reading to me; I missed her comforting me when I sometimes felt sad for no good reason. I missed my dad cooking pasta and steak for Sunday dinner, and always playing the song “Karma Chameleon” whenever we drove in his car. They called me and my brothers, and Skyped with us too, but it wasn’t the same, and when we hung up, the emptiness felt like something I could actually touch. One day at school I broke down crying and just couldn’t stop. My teacher tried to help, frantically gathering tissues from her desk, but there wasn’t much she could do. Of my siblings, my older brother was the only one of us who truly understood what was happening. I think that made him feel extra alone, because he spent months practically locked in his room playing video games and barely speaking to any of us. I played with my little brother, who knew even less than I did.

I have always loved to draw and paint. As soon as I could hold a pencil, I started sketching everything I saw. By the time I was four years old, I was attending art classes at the local museum – partly because my parents wanted to encourage my talent, and partly, I’m pretty sure, because they didn't want me drawing on everything at home. My mom saved most of my drawings, and today when I look at the ones I made during those months when my parents were away, I feel like I can see the anxiety in every crayon or brush stroke. People and things are outlined with extra thick lines, as if I was trying to reassure myself that the world had weight, that everything wouldn't just float away and disappear the way they seemed to be with my family.

At Christmas, we finally got to go see our parents in Hong Kong. I was warned to be prepared for my father to look different, but when we got to the apartment and my dad opened the door, he wore the same goofy smile he always had on when he was really happy. He didn't seem different at all to me. Endless sessions of chemotherapy and radiation had weakened him and left him thinner, but I focused on his smile, which had stayed the same. Sometimes when we sat down for dinner, though, he couldn’t eat anything. I noticed that, because he had always had such a big appetite. But suddenly, even just the smell of food would bother him so much that he would have to leave the room.

My brothers and I made the same trip to Hong Kong every month or two after that. This threw my body clock out of whack, and I was always tired. I didn't mind flying to Hong Kong, but I never liked coming back to the States. Every time, I would beg my parents to let me stay with them. By the spring, though, we had good news. Six months after his supposedly terminal diagnosis, my dad was cancer-free.

It’s been ten years now, with no sign of the cancer returning. My dad likes to talk about how almost dying made him appreciate living. I hope he knows how much it made me appreciate having him around.