Quotable: Ken Jeong, On A Mother’s Strength

In the middle of the most challenging time of our lives, Tran stood strong for our family and encouraged me to pursue my dream of leaving behind my career as a doctor to become a comedian. (I don’t know how many wives would encourage that kind of insanity. But I was lucky mine did.)

Three years ago, as my wife and I were eagerly adapting to parenthood with our then 1-year-old twin girls, Alexa and Zooey, we received the most devastating news. Tran was diagnosed with a highly aggressive form of breast cancer. We were both in shock, and I was angry. How could this be happening to her? How could this be happening to us now, at what should be the happiest time of our lives? But her grace and poise in how she faced her own diagnosis made me realize I’d have to stand up and be the man she needed me to be — the man who would match her strength and be her constant throughout her battle. We were in this together.

Throughout her grueling treatments — 16 chemotherapy sessions, a mastectomy, followed by radiation — I stood by her side in complete amazement as she drew from a strength I didn’t know she possessed, until she became a mother. She fought back against cancer with everything she had for our girls, so that they would grow up knowing a mother’s love, a mother’s instinct, a mother’s touch.

It was difficult to comprehend why this was happening to her at a time when she should be enjoying the first years of motherhood with her young children. I now believe there was a reason she was diagnosed when she was — she had a mother’s strength to draw from, and a stronger will to fight.
- From “For My Wife, In Celebration Of Mother’s Day,” as published in The Huffington Post
Image courtesy of Zimbio