by Gyasi Kress
Chicago
It was the timing of it that most bewildered my father—the checkup had been scheduled “just in case” following a minor car accident. His back, his neck, his blood pressure were good—but they’d discovered something else entirely. Stage 4 cancer, they’d told him, and as he told me, I could tell that he literally could not believe this news. As he aired his suspicions of our healthcare system, which he’d seen bankrupt friends who hadn’t survived, I realized he was in denial and also deeply afraid, and that I’d need to put certain things on hold to be by his side.
For over a month, I’d been on a daimoku campaign, begun last August. I’d been praying to breakthrough something deep, which I knew would bring opportunities for change. But I was surprised that the opportunity involved my father, who had not been the focus of my prayer. My art, my relationship, my clinical massage business—my prayers had revolved mostly around these things. In fact, I’d never thought my relationship with my father could change—we were different in every possible way, the only common ground being that we were both exceptionally hard-headed.
We both grew up in Chicago, but the city had taught us very different life lessons. It taught him to be tough, to look out for himself, to focus on material gains. The streets taught me how I did not want to be, while my mother showed me how to live true to myself. A fiercely courageous performing musician who’d come out in her 30s as gay, my mother was the person who had my ear always, whose life lessons I was always willing to hear.
“Be strong,” she told me, just before her death. “You’ll be the one to take care of our family.” When the coroners took her from our home days later (her heart had given out at last), I sat on the couch, struck by how fleeting life was, thinking, This must be the deepest pain. Yet the next day, I woke up and went to school, determined to live in a way my mother would be proud of. It was she who’d raised me in the SGI and shown me what it means to live as a disciple of Ikeda Sensei.
In the following years, my older brother Nkosi and I fought tooth and nail to realize our dreams. With immense support of our SGI family, I went off to college to pursue an acting degree while Nkosi, graduating from a top dance institute, began performing on Broadway.
It was unthinkable that we’d get steered off course from our dreams, but in my third year of college, we were. That year, Nkosi exhibited the first signs of schizophrenia, which worsened with time. It soon became clear that this was not some kind of passing, mental flu—it would be my brother’s battle for life. I’d promised my mom to take care of our family, so I moved home, found work and cared for my brother.
But over the years, I felt that something was missing—that I’d missed my shot at success. Even among my family, I didn’t feel understood or appreciated for the support that I gave.
Even as I succeeded in remaking myself as an educator, and then as a clinical massage therapist, I did not feel I was fulfilling my potential—and this is what had prompted this most recent daimoku campaign. In September, I pivoted from building my private business to supporting and caring for my father. And this meant caring for his mother as well, whose primary support had for years been my father. As I continued supporting my family while striving in my SGI activities, my biggest source of stress was my father’s health. Feeling myself nearing a limit, I began to pray this single-minded prayer:
No matter what happens, may my family live with dignity. May they die with dignity. May I become the kind of person who can support them with dignity.
Then, last winter, everything changed when a health scare prompted my father to go to the hospital. He took an ambulance, and I followed behind, chanting all the way there. The following day, in the ICU, he began speaking, clear and urgent. He thinks he may die today, I realized, and listened with every ounce of my being.
Mostly, he told stories of my mother, who he’d deeply admired for her strength and conviction. He spoke of their love, transcending religious beliefs—his in God, hers in the Mystic Law. It registered for me that I was not being schooled on some lesson of his that he felt I hadn’t yet learned. He was simply telling the stories he wanted to tell, hoping I’d hear and remember.
As I listened, I chanted under my breath, praying he’d live a long and happy life. At one point, he stopped and listened to me—to my chanting at his side. He took a breath and for the first time I’m aware of, chanted once, with me: Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
The doctors ran some tests, then ran a few more, then came and presented the numbers. His numbers were bad—his life was in danger, but with treatment, he’d live and even, maybe, see the cancer go into remission. This would not be his last day on earth—hopefully, he had many more to come.
When the doctor left, he took a deep breath, then turned to me and said, “I’m so glad you are my son.” And then, “I’m so glad you are your mother’s son.”
In that moment, I felt understood. I felt he saw that our intentions were the same. And I saw something I had not expected to see—that his intention was the same as my mother’s. He wanted to be a source of strength for the people he loved. From this moment on, things shifted in my family—I began to be recognized for the value I’d been creating through family care.
My father’s cancer numbers have since swung the right way—they are almost half what they were last winter. I’m managing to focus on everything I care for—my art, my business, my relationship and my community, as well as my family. In all these things, I feel that I’ve broken through, relying on single-minded prayer and action to bring forth the inherent dignity of life.
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