One Inspirational Word Every Cancer Patient or Survivor Needs to Hear

If you had to pick just one word to describe or represent yourself, what would it be?

Funny? Adventurous? Loyal? Pyromaniac?

If the answer you are thinking of is “indescribable” I applaud your sense of humor and wit. However, that is just a way to avoid answering the real question, so try again. 

It is difficult to choose only one word and be certain of it. So while you carefully consider your options or pull out a thesaurus, I will share my answer with you.

If I had to define myself in one word, I would use this one without hesitation:

“Kintsukuroi”

I imagine that some of you are doing a double-take right now and thinking: “Umm, Aspen? Is this even a real word?”

Why, yes! It is a real word! Part of the reason I love the word kintsukuroi so much is that most people have never heard of it.

(If you have already read about how much I love to run in the rain in my personal statement or the author bio at the bottom of any post, you are probably starting to figure out that my favorite things in life are far from stereotypical.)

But I am willing to sacrifice the secrecy of this obscure word so that everyone else can reap the benefits of knowing it!

I believe this is one inspirational word that every cancer patient or survivor needs to hear.

As shown above, the literal definition of Kintsukuroi is “to repair with gold”. It refers to the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold or silver to promote the cultural understanding that a piece is more beautiful for having first been broken. Every repaired piece is unique because the ceramics all shattered in different patterns. And the “scars” of the piece are what make it worth exhibiting. 

To most of us, this is a very foreign concept. Something broken having more value than when it was whole? What? 

While this may feel a bit uncomfortable at first, no one could argue that a boring, stone bowl has far less value than one imbued with gold.

I have been deeply inspired by this word for years now. But why?

Because this is how I view myself.

At some point during my long journey with cancer, I realized there are some kinds of pain in this life that humans are not meant to withstand; things that break people.

Some kinds of pain just cause you to crack. Other times, pain may strike quickly and chip away only a small piece of you. These “wounds” heal quickly.

But life is not always that kind.

Some trials you face will place a weight on you that you cannot bear. You will be crushed under the pressure. Everyone has a breaking point.

One year into my chemotherapy, I reached my own breaking point. You can read the story of why here.

It was only years after I broke that I realized something else:

True strength is not demonstrated when you stubbornly refuse to break or choose to run away from pain.

It is much easier to maintain comfort and push painful things to the side than to face them. (This is why most people walk away from challenging or painful situations if they have the choice)

No, true strength is demonstrated when encounter insurmountable pain, break, feel like you have nothing left, feel like you can’t keep going, and still choose to KEEP PUSHING FORWARD ANYWAY.

If this doesn’t sound like a description of the kind strength that cancer patients and survivors display, I don’t know what does.

True strength is continuing on even when you break. 

This is the kind of strength that allows you to overcome your pain, transcend the limits you thought you had, and learn to withstand the circumstances that first broke you.

This is what Kinsukuroi means to me: It means accepting your brokenness and then piecing yourself back together in a way that leaves you stronger. It means exercising true strength and choosing to be remade instead of being defeated. Kintsukuroi means staring at your brokenness in the mirror and seeing potential. 

This one concept is foundational in my ever-expanding identity as a leukemia survivor.

(Additionally, Kinsukuroi was also the catalyst for my slight obsession with cool words. So you can blame it when you get tired of my logophile ranting). 

While I was sick, it felt cancer and chemo were breaking me in a thousand different ways. When I stumbled across this new word, it lingered in my mind. This one, solitary, ridiculously-hard-to-pronounce word somehow gave me a glimmer of hope that my breaking would not be an ending but a beginning.

As time went on, cancer did not only break me, it shattered me. It pounded me into dust until there was nothing left to break. It obliterated everything I was. It broke my body, my mind, and my spirit. On the last day of my chemo treatment, I felt hollow.

Cancer had taken everything from me, including my hope for feeling happy in the near or distant future. I felt nothing but the physical and emotional pain that had been my reality for years. I swallowed my last chemo pills and felt completely numb because it felt like nothing changed. 

I had nothing left to lose, and I didn’t care about my life anymore. The only thing I wanted was to not exist anymore.

Or so I thought.

Somehow, somewhere, the word Kinsukuroi and what it stood for echoed distantly in the back of my mind.

It was like a solitary ember suspended above a raging ocean, just waiting to fall into the waves and be quenched. I saw it there; it was the one light amidst all the darkness; it represented the shade of a hope that I had once had.

And it looked insignificant and useless as it hovered just above the vast expanse of ocean that was my suffering.

I had every reason in the world to let that ridiculous little ember meet its end in the dark waters below. Doing anything else felt utterly pointless. And I wanted to. And everyone around me would have understood. It would have been justified.

But I guess there is a stubbornly determined part of me that likes to defy the odds.

I decided to snatch that little ember and shield it from the waves.

Fostering my rebellious feelings, I went online and designed a ring with the word Kintsukuroi engraved on it. That ring was the only thing I allowed in my life to commemorate that I had survived cancer and chemo.

When my package arrived, and I begrudgingly slipped that ring onto my finger… I felt just as terrible as before.

And I expected nothing different. My pain was not going to be altered by anything that small.

But one monumental thing had changed at that moment. I had chosen to save that last, little ember before it fell into the sea. I had chosen to take the last little idea of hope and cling to it. 

I had given myself a fighting chance.

I could have become stuck in my pain and remained broken or even let my brokenness kill me. All of those options were genuine possibilities.

Giving up would have been the most natural thing to do in my position. It was what I wanted to do more than anything.

But I chose differently.

So, even when it felt hopeless, I refused to take that ring off. I wore it day and night as a reminder that my brokenness did not have to be the end of my story.

And that little ember of hope that I saved from drowning was what gave me the ability to begin building a fire that would eventually create enough light to challenge my darkness and pain.

It took a long time. An infuriatingly long time. But day by day, and piece by piece, I began to put myself back together.

It was a seemingly impossible puzzle, and I despise even the easy puzzles (sorry grandma).

I had to dig deep and find resilience and strength I didn’t know I possessed. I had to make peace with a life that made me feel like dying and work every day to change that reality.

And I did.

Cancer broke me, and I chose not only to remake myself; I also chose to shape myself into the person I wanted to be.

My reconstruction process allowed me to grow in heart, mind, body, and soul. I am filled with utter confidence in who I am. I have hopes and dreams for the future, and I am certain of my abilities and priorities. I came to know my weaknesses as intimately as I know my strengths.

I can now see how much potential I have to make a difference in my own life and in the world around me.

My brokenness does not define me, and it never will. Breaking was not my choice. What defines me is what I choose to do with my brokenness. 

As I continue to pick up the pieces of myself, I continue to grow.  And when the world throws in something else to break me (probably just out of spite at this point), I lose my mind, fall apart, think life is unfair, want to give up, and then I pick up those pieces, too (just to spite the world right back).

I choose to keep repairing myself with gold. Because I know I am better than what breaks me. 

And I love who I have become.

Believe me, putting the pieces of yourself back together again after you break is not easy.

Quite frankly, it is one of the most difficult things you can ever do.

You have to take one ember and create a fire big enough to burn up an entire ocean of pain. That is why most people—when they have the option—choose to run from anything painful before it could even allow them to crack. Other people will break but choose to remain broken.

These people do not show true strength.

When you break, there is always a choice.

When you have cancer, no matter what the outcome, don’t let it win in the end. Believe that no matter how much pain cancer brings, you can always redeem that suffering. When cancer breaks you, smile in defiance and pick up those pieces.

If you do this, you will be amazed by the person you become.

Everyone has it in them to grow from pain and become the person they want to be. You have that ability.

When you do break and choose to show true strength; when you cling to that ridiculously-small ember; when you pick up the pieces of yourself and learn how to fuse them back together, you become more beautiful (epic–looking for all you guys out there), more experienced, and stronger than any person who has never been broken at all.

I know… All that from one little word?

Yes. All that from one impossible-to-pronounce word. Imagine what I could do with an entire dictionary!

But that is the entire point of this post: That one small thing, one seemingly insignificant ember, one small choice, can make all the difference in the long run.

I hope you remember the word kintsukuroi and that it can impact you in the way that it did me.

For those of you who are brave enough to be a bit vulnerable (I know it is a terrifying thing), comment one word below that describes you. And if you are feeling extra ambitious, explain to me why you chose that word!

And, just for those of you who are wondering (probably everyone, if we are being honest), my favorite word is pronounced like this:

KINT (like “lint” with a K)—SUE (like the name)—COO (the sound the bird makes) ROY (also like the name).

“Kintsukuroi”