By: Min Suh

Eiko.
My love, my inspiration.
If we met again in the afterlife, it would be as grandmother and granddaughter, rather than as professor and student.
Recently, I have felt very disconnected from you, and everything that made me “fearless,” as you once described me in your letter. What you gave and taught me has brought me to where I am, but I feel as if I have lost that part of me. Now I am just hands that perform physical exams and a brain that crams knowledge about the renal countercurrent multiplication system. I robot what it’s like to use my hands to stroke your thin skin when we hug.
There is absolutely no one like you. The way you speak English and your choice of words reflect your quirkiness—so American yet so Japanese, and so Eiko. How are you so unafraid to tell people what’s on your mind?
Someone here at medical school Tod me that losing someone in life, even if not due to death, is a loss akin to having someone very close to you die. I suffered an immense loss when I said goodbye to you on my graduation day. I didn’t shed a single tear then, but I am crying now. At that moment I wasn’t sure where I was going. You offered me your home in New York. How did you demonstrate so much care for me when you must have met so many students in your life?
Your are one of the hardest working people I know. You set high standards for yourself, yet never seem to get discouraged. I sometimes set a lofty bar for myself and despair at the fact that I may be too little and too weak to ever reach that goal. How are you always so full of energy?
Thinking about you gives me courage. I feel powerful because you, Eiko, one of the most stunning people I know, told me that I am fearless.
And reading that letter again now, I notice that you also said I am “passionate.” That’s funny, because lately I have felt very devoid of passion. I don’t feel passionate about genetic mutations that cause neoplasms or immunotherapy. And I feel bad about that. The more I get stressed out these days, the more I want to write. My passion for creative exploration is fueled by my non-passion for genomic cancer research.
I don’t want to fail you, Eiko. I don’t want to fail myself by becoming someone stripped of all the magic that you awakened in and admired about me. Medicine makes me work hard, because of fear—fear of not doing well on exams, fear of making mistakes, fear of hurting my patients, fear of not being able to support myself, and fear of being judged. But what pushed me to work hard in choreography was not fear; it was fearlessness, curiosity, and excitement. I felt elated when weaving my voice into movements.
You taught me that a body if a landscape. Eiko, I must have truly loved you. I wrote this because I felt guily about having chosen to work at the free clinic over going to see you perform.
Your scars will be medallions, you said to me, before I went to the emergency room that night. As long as that scar stays on my body, I won’t be able to leave you, Eiko. In between headlights, buildings, and sirens, your voice keeps me awake, and then moves me softly to sleep.