The white light of the chemotherapy ward once made me lose all colors, until I picked up a paintbrush.
Dear friend, four years ago, that day, I got the diagnosis—leukemia.
I sat in my studio all day. The turpentine smell mixed with sandalwood from the aromatherapy, thick, choking. Sunlight filtered through the gauze curtain, casting mottled shadows on the blank canvas. I stared at it, hands shaking.
Denial. Anger. Fear. All tangled, like a mess of paint on the palette. I couldn’t accept it. How? Me? A painter who lives for colors, trapped by a disease that drains all light?
I grabbed a piece ofletter, a pen. Decided to write to my future self. A negotiation with fate.
But the pen, it shook. Words stuck in my throat. I wrote a line, crossed it out. Wrote again, the tiptore the paper. Anger burned in my chest, hot, sharp. Despair pulled me down, deep, like a bottomless dark blue.
Wait, the aromatherapy candle. It went out suddenly. I fumbled for the lighter, hands still shaking. No oil. I searched the drawer, rummaged through paint tubes and brushes, finally found a new one. Lit it again. The sandalwood aroma curled up, slower, softer.
I stared at the crumpledletter, tears dripping. The ink blurred, like my messy mind. “I can’t do this,” I whispered. Felt like tearing it all up, throwing it away. What’s the point of writing to the future? There is no future.
Then I saw the paint tube beside me. Cobalt blue. The color that used to calm my restlessness.
I picked up the brush, dipped my fingertips in the paint—cold, smooth. Smudged it along the edge of theletter. Blue, spreading, like a quiet sea. Covering the crossed-out words, the tear stains.
Every drop of ink is a bullet fired at fate. Every stroke of paint, too.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath—slow in, slow out, the way I learned later, a little trick from Chinese emotional regulation. Inhale the sandalwood, exhale the anger. Inhale the color, exhale the despair.
My grip was too tight, knuckles white. Wrist ached. But the blue kept spreading, and with it, something inside me loosened. I dipped the brush again, added a little red—bright, warm, like a spark.
Wait, the paint splashed. On my linen dress, a little blue dot. I stared at it, then laughed. A small, shaky laugh. Meu amor, how messy this is. But it’s real.
I went back to the letter. No more sharp words, no more anger. Just honest feelings. “I’m scared,” I wrote. “I’m angry. But I don’t want to give up.” The pen moved smoothly now, no more breaks. The blue and red on the edge, like a hug, wrapping around my words.
That day, I sat there until the sun set. Finished the letter, folded it carefully. The aromatherapy candle burned down, leaving a little pool of wax. My fingers were covered in paint, my dress stained. But my heart, it was lighter. Not okay, not yet. But lighter.
Many of us, when we first get the diagnosis, we get stuck. We fight, we deny, we collapse. We think accepting means giving in, means losing. But it’s not.
I re-read that letter yesterday. The paper is yellowed, the paint faded. But I can still feel the despair, the anger, the tiny spark of hope. I’m grateful for that girl who didn’t tear up the letter, who picked up the brush, who let the colors take the pain away.
Acceptance is not surrender. It’s another kind of resistance. It’s letting yourself feel the pain, then letting it go—through a brush, a color, a deep breath, a letter to yourself.
You don’t have to be a master. You don’t have to paint something beautiful. Just pick up a brush, dip it in any color that calls to you. Let it spread, let it flow. Let the pain go with the strokes.
Every drop of ink is a bullet fired at fate. And every stroke of paint, is a step toward healing.
I folded the letter again, put it back behind the frame of my first painting after diagnosis. Reached for the brush, ready to add a little more red to the canvas. The sun was setting, golden light on the blueletter, on the paint-stained dress, on my hands.
Meu amor, look. The colors are coming back.
