I'm so lucky, but do I even appreciate it

My troubles are very few, especially when I think about how hard some other people have it.
One of my oldest friends here in Japan has really been kicked in the teeth.
To give you some background, he is English and had a Latin American partner here in Japan. Because of an immigration mix-up, the partner was deported back to Peru. He had been living with a serious drug and alcohol addiction problem for many years. So he entered rehab in a sort of christian commune in the deep countryside somewhere. It seems this community focused not only on dealing with addiction, but also on trying to brainwash people who entered there that they weren't gay. Needless to say, this devastated my friend and put their relationship under terrible strain. My friend had moved heaven and earth to try and keep his partner in Japan, and literally almost bankrupted himself getting to Bolivia and Peru to be with the one he loves. I know this all sounds like a bad soap opera, but it's painfully serious. Ten days ago, the partner passed away in hospital from liver failure.
It's really hard for me to get my head around the fact that someone as good and kind and positive as my friend would be put through so much torment. He's really not doing well and I guess I and his other friends feel pretty useless. It certainly puts my silly complaints into perspective. Life really is too short.
I guess at times like this you try to grasp at whatever small positives you can. On leaving the commune and entering the hospital, the partner had gotten clean, reunited with his family and had every intention of going back to my friend as soon as the operation he needed to undergo was complete. It looked like it could have been a happy ending to several years of pain, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.
To give another example of good people getting messed around, my best Japanese friend is now having her own stalker experience (you may know I had a little incident myself last year). It's very difficult as it's a coworker, and for the sake of her career she has to be very careful what she does. There are laws in Japan to protect against sexual harrassment, but it's a little more complicated. Japanese business is still quite male dominated, and issues of age and rank come into play too. If she were to get a reputation for being a trouble-maker she could kiss her career prospects goodbye. It just makes me so mad. It's all so selfish and unfair. Again it's another situation where I feel powerless and just have to watch as a friend goes through the ringer.
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Sunday March 5, 2006 - 09:45pm (JST) Edit Delete Permanent Link 0 Comments