The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Yip-Williams, Julie. The Unwinding of the Miracle. Random House, 2019.

The narrator, Julie Yip-Williams, writes to her daughters about her soon death from colon cancer. She loves her daughters very much. She reminds them that people learn through suffering and that our purpose in life is to experience and learn as much as we can.

Yip-Williams continues her memoir by describing her childhood. She was born to a poor Chinese family in Communist Vietnam. Since she was blind, her paternal grandmother wanted her to be killed as an infant. She demanded that Julie’s parents take her to a specific herbalist who would cause the baby to die. But when Julie’s parents brought her to the herbalist, he refused to kill her. Her parents were overjoyed.

Eventually, Yip-Williams’ family got on a boat to flee to Hong Kong, and then the United States. Her family moved to California, where she received sight-saving surgery. Although she was still medically blind, she could see shapes and colors, and read large letters.

Yip-Williams left California for Williams College in Massachusetts. She majored in history. Afterward, she attended Harvard Law School. Then she worked as a lawyer in New York, where she met Josh, whom she married. They had two daughters together: Mia and Belle. Julie and Josh practiced law at a prestigious firm in New York and lived in an apartment there.

When Julie was in California for a cousin’s wedding, she was in agony, and she went to the emergency room. The doctors found cancer obstructing most of her colon. She had a surgery to remove the cancer. Later, Julie and her family returned to New York. Her doctors discovered that her cancer had spread.

Julie’s husband trusted in numbers and statistics. However, she had faith in unquantifiable things: her willpower and strength. She reminded him of the unlikelihood of her—who was born poor and blind in Communist Vietnam—to come to the United States, graduate Harvard Law School, and then to meet and marry him.

Julie struggled because she did not want to leave her daughters and husband. She participated in clinical trials to try to survive. However, they did not help. Her cancer spread. Her medicines and radiation treatments also damaged her health. She lost her hair and developed mouth sores. Eating became painful for her, and foods became tasteless to her.

She believed that due to her illness, she received and gave more love. Her family and relatives even surprised her with a Times Square billboard with her photo and well-wishes. She also befriended many of her doctors and nurses. Julie loved life very much; she was sad to leave it. She encouraged people to live. She traveled more with her family. She was determined to die at home, not at the hospital.

She also spent the last several months of her life planning practically and thoroughly for her family. She and Joshua bought the apartment next door to theirs and then connected the two. Julie prepared a lovely home for Joshua and their girls. She hoped her work on her daughters’ rooms would communicate to her girls that she loved them very much. Often, she worried about Joshua someday having a new wife.

She encouraged her readers to live. She contemplated the mystery of life, and how she had felt so small when she traveled to Antarctica. She felt thankful to be conscious for death. She wanted to learn as much as she could from the experience. She wrote to Josh about how she had felt unworthy for most of her life, but she had proved her worth to herself by traveling alone. Then she was ready to marry him. She encouraged Josh to first heal himself and become whole again after her death. Then he would be ready to love again.

Julie died at home from the cancer. Her daughters played instruments at her funeral service. Joshua wrote the Epilogue in their master bedroom a few months afterward. He wrote about how much he missed Julie. He also described how much he had learned from her. She had taught him to accept reality. From acceptance comes wisdom and power. He would need to learn to accept the fact she had died. He looked forward to one day reuniting with her again.