What do we do with our short time here on earth?
That’s a question I ask myself often. Some people seem to find the answer in their careers: Follow your passion, and you’ll never work. That's a piece of advice I’ve heard ever since I was a kid. Sounds like a good plan, except that my passions aren’t typically the type that you can make a lot of money from.
On a table in my office, next to my desk, is a nearly square block of wood - just under an inch high. It’s about a foot and a half long on each side. The wood is from a type of spruce, and it’s stained, resulting in a light brown color. The top has a 19 by 19 grid, printed in black. Some of the lines are slightly faded, and the top of the board has some small dings that have developed over time from wear. Next to that block of wood are two beautifully carved bowls for holding stones: one filled with shiny white stones, made of clamshell, and the other filled with black stones made of slate. If you haven’t guessed, what I’m describing here is a Go board and stones. Go is a popular strategy game in Asia, and it’s one of my passions. The board and stones came to me as a gift from my wife of over 16 years.
I met my wife in Japan. We were both exchange students, living in Sendai for a year. She was cute. One night, coming back to my room, I saw a note attached to my door. She had invited me to dinner. I was nervous and excited, and I remember combing my hair so straight that the part on my head would put a ruler to shame. We had a great first date.
In the weeks that followed, we talked on the phone every day, and I came to know her favorite food – a Korean dish called tteokbokki. I scoured the Internet for a recipe and found a nearby Korean grocery store to gather ingredients. I didn’t really know how the dish was supposed to taste, so I did a couple of trial runs up front, testing out the recipe by feeding some other Korean friends. Once the dish was perfected, I invited her over for another date – this time with me cooking. Later I would find out that it was on that date that she first seriously considered wanting to marry me. We only grew closer throughout the rest of the year.
The experience was mind blowing for me, as I had never traveled outside of North America before that adventure. My wife certainly experienced culture shock in her own way, but maybe to a lesser degree. She’s from Korea, and while there are definite differences between Korean and Japanese culture, her experiences growing up in Asia naturally led to many opportunities for me to learn from her.
One of the reasons I was excited about studying in Japan was due to my passion for Go. China, Korea, and Japan all have professional Go associations, and players from those three countries are among the strongest in the world.
After meeting my wife-to-be, however, it wasn’t long before I was inspired by her work ethic. Strong work ethic is a pillar of Korean culture, as the entire society is heavily influenced by Confucianism. While the value of hard work can be seen in some Protestant values adopted by the West, Confucianism adds another dimension: working hard for the group. Individual achievement is important, but the welfare of the group is worth fighting for.
The Go board shows this clearly. In contrast to chess, a thinking game popular in the West, the pieces in the game of Go have all the same value. No piece is more important than another. What matters is the synergy of pieces, and how they work together to produce a wholistic result. Pieces complement one another, and any individual piece can be sacrificed for the sake of another.
My wife taught me how to study that year. How to truly study hard at something. That year, I studied Japanese like my life depended on it. Regarding Japanese ability, I was told that I was the only Westerner to advance as far as I did in the history of the program. But I wasn’t studying hard for individual reasons. I was doing it for her. Like pieces on the Go board, we had synergy.
Time passed, and I decided to propose when I was visiting her one summer in Korea. I went to Tiffany & Co. in Korea to buy the ring. Initially, I didn’t calculate the exchange rate correctly, and almost bought a ring ten times my budget! I hid the ring in my backpack, planning to propose later that day. As luck may have it, it was on that very day that my wife thought that it’d be a good idea for me to buy a new backpack. Despite my objections, we got a new backpack, throwing away the old one... along with the ring! Fortunately, I was able to recover it after pretending to go to the restroom - but actually running back to the trashcan where we had thrown the ring away. Later that day, we fed fish together at a pond on her college campus, as we often did. It was a beautiful and sunny day. The koi swam happily in the pond as we fed them. Then, instead of pulling out food for the fish, I pulled out the ring and proposed. Needless to say, she said yes.
I visited Korea several times. I switched focus and started to study Korean, rather than Japanese. My in-laws didn’t speak English, after all. I was a little old to be learning a foreign language efficiently for the first time. But it didn’t matter. I had learned from my wife that with enough study, enough effort, and enough focus… anything is possible with enough hard work.
Every year, around August, there’s a big Go tournament in the US called the US Go Congress. Even though the game is somewhat of a niche hobby in America, there are still hundreds of players who attend. In 2015, I decided that I was going to win my division that year. I took a break from studying Korean, and I focused on Go. Whenever I had free time, I’d be doing tactical puzzles or playing games. Go, Go, Go – all the time. And sure enough, when August came around, I was ready. There are six games in the main tournament that are played throughout the week. I won all of them, ending the week with a perfect record, winning my first tournament. Again, I saw what my wife had taught me. Anything is possible with enough hard work.
A few years later, I decided to replicate my success. My rating had improved, so the competition would be tougher in 2017. But I wanted to give it a try. I still remember the second game vividly. It was a close game, the black and white stones placed efficiently across the board. Black and white. Yin and yang. Life and death. Health and illness. The game was close enough that the outcome was uncertain. I was also short on time. But by my estimate, I was slightly ahead – by maybe three or four points. In the endgame, my opponent threatened to cut off my group. It was an unexpected move. Somehow – maybe due to time pressure – I overlooked it and played elsewhere. My stones didn’t have synergy. He cut off my group and captured it. And just like that, the game was over. I had lost. I lost the rest of my games that week as well, ending with a record of one win and five losses. I couldn’t believe it. Anything is possible with enough hard work, but I guess it wasn’t enough this time, I thought to myself.
Despite my wife’s lack of interest in the game of Go, she has always supported me in studying it. I remember telling her about one of the online league games I had been playing one night in 2022, while we were lying in bed together. She wasn’t that interested, but still listened to what I had to say.
She was a little uncomfortable, I remember, because of a bump that had developed on the left part of her groin. She suspected it was a reaction from chigger bites since she’d gotten bitten before. A couple of days went by, and things didn’t really get better. We decided that maybe she should go to the doctor. But as the case may be, she woke up in the middle of the night that day shivering. We went to the emergency room.
Days went by, and eventually weeks, as we went from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was up with her groin. Then came another day that I remember vividly. We both joined a video call with a doctor from the university hospital’s oncology department. It was then that we learned that my wife had stage four cancer, and it was incurable. It turns out that there is a tumor marker known as CA19-9 to track the activity of cancer in the blood. A normal level is under 40 U/mL (units per milliliter). My wife’s marker came in at a value of over 213,000 U/mL. An unexpected move, played by a faceless opponent.
For quite some time, I was in denial about the situation. The word “incurable” didn’t make sense. Anything is possible with enough hard work, so if my wife and the doctors just worked hard… She'd be fine.
But it wasn’t fine. She started out with a drug called oxaliplatin, a type of chemotherapy aimed to target gastrointestinal cancers. Initially, the drug showed promise. After a couple months of taking the drug, her CA19-9 tumor marker dropped from the initial 213,000+ U/mL to a modest 499 U/mL. We weren’t in the endgame yet, but the board position looked to be in our favor. But in March of 2023, our faceless opponent started a comeback. The tumor marker had, again, started to rise.
In Korean Confucianism, there’s a heritage of hyodo, which is an extension of honor for your ancestry. The thoughts and feelings of your parents are more important than your own. It’s your duty to maintain this honor and harmony. Yin and yang. Accordingly, my wife didn’t want to tell her parents. She’s just a piece on the Go board, and it’s not right for that piece to disrupt the flow of the game.
We, in fact, visited Korea again in the summer of 2023. We saw my wife’s parents. We traveled the country. We had a great time – all the while, keeping our secret: the cancer in my wife’s body was alive and well, gradually creeping back.
Since that time, we’ve tried a variety of medicines. After the oxaliplatin came olaparib. Then came others. Capecitabine. Cisplatin. Durvalumab. Gemcitabine. And of course, the supplemental medications: palonosetron, neulasta and dexamethasone to name a few. In my language studies, I’ve memorized thousands of Japanese and Korean words. Sometimes it was boring, and sometimes I didn’t feel like taking the time to study. But I still memorized all of those words because I wanted to learn. Somehow, that passion is lost to me now. It’s not fun to memorize the names of medications.
For a long time, I stopped playing Go. The game has been a passion in my life for longer than it hasn’t been. But it didn’t seem right to play a game anymore. I suppose the thought that anything is possible is a lie. Sometimes you work hard and do all that you can... And fail. Sometimes your group gets cut off in a moment of weakness. Sometimes the clock is running, and you simply run out of time.
The love of my life is still alive. The cancer situation hasn’t turned around. We’ve exhausted the "standard" treatments, and also one clinical trial. We may try a different clinical trial soon. The pain in her stomach has increased. She wants to make home improvements before she’s gone... I simply don’t want her to go...
The board looks grim as a look for an opportunity... Anything to turn the game around to our favor. This faceless opponent is stronger than we thought. Will our future shine brightly like a white clam shell stone? Or will I be met with the cold, dark slate that is death?
I’ve started playing Go, again. I’m not as competitive as I used to be, but it’s nice to play a game once in a while. When I face my opponent on the Go board, I’m often met with uncertainty. There’s a balance of risk and hope. Maybe I’ll lose, even though I tried to play my best game. I like that feeling.
It’s also one answer to the question, "What do we do with our short time here on earth?"... Maybe playing a board game isn’t a great answer. Perhaps it’s not the best use of my time. But I’m just a piece on the board – part of the larger group. I don’t want to disrupt the flow of the game.
How will the game end? We’re in the endgame, now – a tight balance between hope and despair. She is in a lot of pain... I am struggling to find a move.
These days, I feel that I’m an observer, not a player in this game. That’s how I want to spend this brief time of life: resilient - enjoying the beauty of the game for what it is... accepting whatever result comes our way. Reality may not always be fun or happy. But that's part of what brings beauty. Life and death. Black and white. Yin and yang.