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Last night, my family and I delighted in a half-homemade, half-takeout meal (my favorite kind!). The takeout portion came from a vegetarian Chinese hole in the wall located in Cupertino, CA. Behold:

Clockwise, from top left: marinated seaweed with beancurd; pickled string beans with vegetarian ground pork; napa cabbage, carrots, and beancurd sheets; kalimeris with braised tofu

Stuffed breads of both steamed and baked varieties

Seaweed rice rolls stuffed with fried bread sticks and dry onion (I know!)

Not to be outdone, the homemade delectables:

Vegetarian shumai

Zongzi (sweet glutinous rice and red bean paste wrapped with bamboo leaves and steamed)

Slow-cooked peanuts with star anise

Plus a few other appetizers, and we had ourselves a meal!

The food was delicious, and recipes are forthcoming. But today, I’m more interested in sharing with you the people who graced me with their presence as I ate away.

The bearers of these yummies were my second aunt (mother’s younger cousin) and two girl friends, who traveled quite a ways to drop an impromptu feast on our family. This is my second aunt:

Beautiful, isn’t she? She was holding her iPhone at the time because she was busy explaining and looking up videos of Paul the Octopus (how by the way, did I know nothing of this fellow until now?!) She was wearing a hat because she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer six months ago, and has since been undergoing chemotherapy treatments.

Health-wise, things aren’t looking great. Her cancer was serendipitously discovered during a routine check-up, at which point it was already in its third stage. Her tumor count is growing quickly and she was put on a doubly-intensive chemo schedule that might have incapacitated someone less strong than she.

My second aunt has always been one of the strongest, most optimistic and independent people I have known. Until I came back home last week and met with her in person for the first time since she was diagnosed, I wasn’t aware of the severity of her condition. In our online correspondences while I was away, she had evinced nothing but pure positivity. Even last night, if it weren’t for her bald head and conversational references to her treatment, she would never have let on that she’s actually seriously ill.

I respect her so much for that. I respect that while the other women at the table (who had full heads of hair and lacked the dark stains that chemo leaves on the skin) begged me not to photograph them for fear of unflattering angles, my second aunt looked into the camera with a smile, and said: “You might not like the way a picture looks when it’s first taken, but you’ll never regret it when you look back on it even as little as a month later.”

Demonstrating how to determine your dominant eye

I respect that she savored every bite of her dinner and didn’t shy away from dessert, even though her treatment has left every food bitter to the taste. “I don’t eat it for the taste anymore,” she said, “but just because I want to.”

I respect that even as a divorced mother who lives alone, she carries no bitterness nor self-pity in her heart. “If I’ve learned one thing from this experience it’s that your health and your body aren’t yours to own, they’re yours on loan until they decide to go on hiatus, so there’s no use trying to control them. Just try to use them well while you have them,” she whispered to me as she left.

I respect that even with her life being in as fragile a place as it presently is, she’s still not afraid of living it. And these are not changes that I’ve seen since she’s become ill. Since I can remember, my second aunt has always been this amazingly radiant source of inspiration in my life. But it wasn’t until last night that the enormity of her character struck me. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately – about appearances, food, my body and my health, and within a few short minutes she made these concerns seem just absurd. Her visit reminded me that a life lived in fear of the simple joys that make it enjoyable, is not a life worthy of respect.

And now I’d like to know – who inspires you to live your life better?

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