I've never eaten sweets because my sister has leukemia. Her illness came from eating sweets.
My sister has a beautiful name, Riya Carey. She was a late-life daughter that my parents prayed for. It's said that my parents used every medical means possible for her. My mother, who had never consulted a fortune-teller before, spent a lot of money doing so for her sake.
Everyone gave her this name hoping that she would have a happy life.
Both my parents are highly educated, and our family was well-off, considered middle-class. For our dearly loved daughter, who wanted the stars, the adults would go to great lengths to pick them, choose the perfect gift boxes, and wrap them up nicely to give to her.
And it was this precious daughter who, at just five years old, developed leukemia.
The doctor at the major hospital didn't show much emotion, calmly stating, "The mechanism of leukemia is not yet fully understood. Sorry, we can't pinpoint the specific cause of the child's illness."
Mother collapsed into father's arms.
My parents treated my sister like a delicate flower, as if she were made of glass, and yet it all ended up this way. They were meticulous in every way, but ended up with this outcome.
Mother wept in father's arms, unable to understand, as none of them could.
Grandma said, perhaps it was from eating too many sweets.
"No, impossible, how could eating sugar cause leukemia?" Mother hugged her head and slid to the ground. "Mom, you're lying to me."
Even if it wasn't from eating sugar, sister loved sweets so much that even her main meals were always sweet cakes. How could she not get sick?
One evening, Mother held me in her arms as we sat by Sister's bedside. She pointed to a photo and told us, "This is a picture of our family at a park."
I looked at sister.
Sister is bald now, thin and pale. It's hard to associate her with the plump, lively little girl in the photo.
At that time, she was only three years old and hadn't fallen ill yet.
She wore a yellow tulle dress, a small tiara on her head, and held a rainbow lollipop. Her chubby cheeks looked as if she had two balls in her mouth.
She smiled brightly in her mother's arms, not at all inferior to the cartoon princess beside her.
Father always said that sister was his sun princess, warming mom and himself.
Tall Father embraced Mother with one arm, encompassing their family of three.
Mother looked at the photo, smiling kindly yet bitterly.
I wasn't in the photo. Because at that time, my sister hadn't fallen ill yet.
Sister's illness came without warning. Overnight, snow seemed to settle on Father's head, and frost appeared at the corners of Mother's eyes. This winter, in the damp and cold south, it was as if a rare heavy snow had fallen.
The doctor said chemotherapy was needed. Sister shaved her head, and the family sold all their assets. They moved from a large house to a smaller one.
Later, the doctor said a bone marrow transplant was needed. Despite matching the national bone marrow registry and using all their connections, it didn't work.
The doctor went from shaking his head once to shaking it repeatedly.
Later, the doctor said umbilical cord blood could also be used. However, when Sister was born, Mother and Father hadn't chosen to save the umbilical cord blood.
Mother said to Father, "Let's have another one."
Maybe the second child's umbilical cord blood could work. Using the cord blood wouldn't affect the next child. That's what mom thought. I thought this.
Father nodded and said, "Let's give it a try."
With that mindset of giving it a try, I was conceived surprisingly easily.
Father and Mother were both very pleased.
"Riya finally has a chance."
