Her Last Question, My Lifelong Mission
By Eswar Shankar, Ph.D. COMMUNITY | POETRY
Content warning: death and dying
October 21, 2022: a day that changed my life forever.
“Won’t I get a second chance?”
Those were among the last words my wife, Gayathri, said to me.
I was holding her hand during the last few minutes she was conscious, before she slipped into a coma. I watched the person I loved slowly leave me, and in those moments, my entire world changed.
Until then, I was a cancer researcher.
I studied cancer through the eyes of science molecular pathways, biomarkers, therapeutic targets, resistance, tumor biology, and treatment.
But that day, cancer was no longer something I studied in a laboratory.
Cancer was taking my wife away from me.
I became a caregiver.
And being a caregiver changed my entire paradigm.
I began to see cancer differently. I began to understand the urgency behind every diagnosis, every delay, every unanswered question.
I started asking myself:
What if we could detect cancer earlier?
What if we could identify the right biomarker before it was too late?
What if we could understand who is going to progress before the disease becomes irreversible?
And most importantly:
What if our research could give another patient the second chance my wife was asking for?
Four years have now passed since Gayathri left this world.
The grief remains, but so does something else: a purpose that has continued to evolve.
My experience as a caregiver has changed the way I think about cancer research. It has made me look beyond discovery alone and think about translation, interception, early detection, meaningful biomarkers, and ultimately, giving patients more time.
Today, when I look at a tumor sample, I don’t see only cells.
I see a person.
I see a family.
I see someone sitting beside a hospital bed, hoping for another treatment, another opportunity, another morning.
Another chance.
Gayathri asked me a question I could not answer.
“Won’t I get a second chance?”
I could not give her that second chance.
But I carry her question with me every day.
It has become part of my purpose as a scientist.
Perhaps this is what caregiving ultimately taught me:
Cancer research is not only about understanding cancer.
It is about creating possibilities for people to live.
Four years later, my science continues to evolve.
My grief has become reflection.
My reflection has become purpose.
And my purpose is to help create the possibilities that, perhaps, could give another family the time that we were not given.
For Gayathri.
For every patient.
For every family waiting for a second chance.
October 21, 2022: a date I will never forget.
Forever in my heart.
