THE SHANGHAI TAILOR

People travel to Shanghai for many reasons.

Some come for business.

Some for the food.

Some for the history.

Some to stand beneath the neon skyline of the Bund and marvel at a city that never seems to stop reinventing itself.

My husband and I traveled there hoping to save his life.

By the time we arrived, advanced pleural mesothelioma had become the uninvited guest living quietly beside us.

Chemotherapy hadn't been offered as a cure.

It was offered to buy time.

Time to think.

Time to hope.

Time to believe we might somehow become the exception.

Bruce had always been good at proving statistics wrong.

After his shattering diagnosis, he continued working because it gave him purpose. Every morning he got up, put his suit and boots on, and walked into another day letting terminal cancer know he would call the shots...until he couldn't.

But eventually it began stealing his breath.

Conversations became shorter.

The fluid around his lungs returned...again and again...each draining carrying risks of its own.

Still...

He smiled.

Then one afternoon we read about a doctor in Shanghai with a different approach.

Hyperthermia instead of radical radiation.

Ancient herbal medicine instead of Western chemotherapy.

None of it promised a miracle.

But it offered something precious.

A possibility.

I let Bruce decide.

It didn't take him long.

Time was running out.

"It may all be hocus pocus, Little One (his pet name for me)...but if it doesn't cure me, at least we'll have seen Shanghai."

The next day I booked the flights.

Every morning in Shanghai belonged to the hospital.

Every afternoon belonged to sleep.

Treatment exhausted Bruce.

While he rested, I wandered the city for both of us.

I walked crowded streets, watched old men playing cards, listened to conversations I couldn't understand, stood beside the Huangpu River watching old Shanghai gaze across at the future rising from Pudong's glass towers.

Every afternoon I returned to the hotel carrying stories instead of souvenirs.

I wanted him to feel as though he'd seen the city too.

In the evenings...when he felt strong enough...we'd walk slowly along the Bund.

We never talked about miracles.

But somehow that city—always rebuilding itself, always reaching higher—made miracles feel just a little more believable.

One warm evening we wandered through a neighborhood park.

Music crackled through an old speaker.

Fairy lights hung from trees.

The locals had turned the footpath into a dance floor.

Elderly couples held one another as though they'd been dancing together since forever.

Some wore pajamas.

Nobody cared.

Life wasn't a performance.

It was simply being lived.

Bruce nudged me.

"Shall we dance?"

I laughed.

"But...we're not dancers."

He grinned.

"Let's defy those odds too."

So we did.

My head rested against his shoulder. His heartbeat echoed softly beneath my cheek.

For a few beautiful minutes...there was no cancer...only music.

Looking back, I think buying time was never really about cheating death. It was about making sure life still had the chance to interrupt it.

A few days later our doctor suggested we visit one of Shanghai's famous tailors.

"Have something special made while you're here," he encouraged.

Inside, the workshop smelled of wool, silk and freshly pressed cloth. Bolts of fabric stretched from floor to ceiling. Tailors worked quietly. Scissors whispered through cashmere.

Time slowed.

Bruce walked directly to a bolt of rich chocolate-brown cashmere. Rubbing the fabric between his fingers, he told the tailor, "I'd like you to make me the finest winter coat you've ever stitched."

The tailor smiled.A challenge he knew well.

"When would you like to wear it, sir?"

Bruce didn't hesitate.

"Next winter...in Australia. And every winter after that."

He gave me a wink.

I blew him a kiss.

Then silently, I made my own bargain with the universe.

Please...let there be more winters.

The tailor examined the cloth thoughtfully.

"You have chosen well, sir. When you are a very old man...this coat will still look as beautiful as the day it was made."

I clung to the tailor's every word. Not because I believed the tailor could see the future. But because hope will borrow strength from anyone willing to offer it.

On what we thought was our last visit to the tailor for Bruce's final fitting, sunlight spilled across a bolt of spectacular red satin just as we walked through the door.

Bruce stopped.

"Little One...that's you."

The fabric seemed alive.

Dragons.

Peonies.

Birds in flight.

Waves stitched into silk.

It shimmered differently each time the light moved.

"You should have a dress made."

"When we get home...we'll dress up, dine out and celebrate us."

I chose a traditional qipao, softened into something that felt a little more like me.

Two days later we collected our garments.

Bruce slipped on his chocolate coat.

Perfect.

I stepped into my red dress. The silk whispered against my skin.

As we carried our new garments through Shanghai Airport, I realized something.

Most people come home from Shanghai carrying shopping bags. We came home carrying hope.

A chocolate-brown coat.

A red satin dress.

And the quiet belief that perhaps the story of us wasn't finished yet. from BECOMING SOLO: a memoir by Julie Stafford