By Ikuji Nakaya, OFS
It was time to go to work. I would force myself out of the bed, brush my teeth, still feeling the buzz from too much sake I had the night before. Make a cup of coffee, grab the newspaper and turn on the TV to check the morning headlines. The first thing to do at the office was to browse all major newspapers, while paying attention to the TV for any breaking situation that we have to make an immediate action. Phones rang constantly in the room filled with smoke from cigarettes. Afternoon was the time to go searching for fresh materials and write articles before the deadline.
Nighttime is an important time for many Japanese reporters to get good stories. Some will go out drinking with news sources and others would visit their homes to learn about the behind-the-scenes developments of ongoing issues. A few remain in the office to standby for irregulars. Tension never eases until after midnight to 2 a.m., when newspapers close the deadlines for their morningers.
It was exciting. As a journalist, I was able to meet many people in highly responsible positions with ease. The press have power. At my age, my salary was the top level in Japan. My friends envied my career. I also enjoyed such position.
Gradually, however, I started to feel as if my life was already predictable. Work, get married, have a couple of kids, buy a house, and continue to work in order to pay back the housing loan and to pay for kids' education. Also save enough money to live after retirement and to afford potential medical costs.
Many of my colleagues worked such long hours that it was not a joke when a son of my colleague saw his father and asked mom, ''Who is this strange man?''
I began questioning myself. About work, social position, money, marriage, kids, housing, etc. ''Why do I have to work so much?'' ''Who am I working for?'' ''Why do we struggle to live a life that is almost foreseeable?'' We only have one life. ''What am I doing?''
After some time of contemplation, I decided to leave Kyodo News that I had worked for eight years, and flew to Thailand in the quest of the sun. First, I needed a vacation. Ocean breeze was calling me. I laid on the beach listening to the waves. I jumped into the emerald-green waters, swimming with the little tropical creatures until I started to wonder whether I am still a human or have already become a fish!
Returning to Bangkok, I called a Franciscan friar that I had met once in Japan. For me, the Franciscans have always seemed like a home-away-from-home, as it was St. Francis that paved the way for my conversion to Catholicism. I was so impressed by his ultimate simplicity and the realistic approach (although sometimes so realistic that it appeared unrealistic) to the ''reality.''
I met Brother John Summers, president of the Franciscan Foundation of Thailand, at the New Tokyo International Airport when he visited Japan to attend an Asia-Pacific meeting of the OFM. I was helping the organizers to receive participants from abroad. Thank God he remembered me and invited me to come to his place about 60 kilometers from downtown Bangkok.
''Are you sure this is not a Hyatt Resort in Lamsai (the name of the village where he is)?'' was probably one of my first questions I asked, stunned by the beauty of the nature of the facility. Tropical trees, ponds, birds...name it and one can find almost anything...except for elephants maybe. The retreat center, which is another project of the OFM in Thailand in addition to AIDS hospice, has some beautiful bungalows (I call it that way) that makes me feel as if being in a Mediterranean resort.
People spending their last moments of life were residing in the inner sector of that beautiful setting. Death was part of a daily life in Lamsai. I used to visit the hospital to see my dying grandmother, with whom I had spent most of my life. Hence, death was not necessarily a new experience for me. But she was 87 years old. Although it was difficult to watch someone special to die, somewhere in my mind, I knew that she was about to end her journey in this world. People loved her. She loved them as well. In contrast, the average age of the people in Lamsai was 32 years old, same as my age at that time -- and abandoned by their families and friends. I was shocked.
I was going to go to India after leaving the beaches of Thailand, where, to my understanding, many people visit to seek for the meaning of life. I believed that in order to find the meaning in life, facing ''death'' was indispensable. After all, once we are born, the only certain thing we know about the future is that we all die one day. Someone said, almost everybody living now will be dead in a hundred years. It made me think.
India was no longer necessary for me -- at least for the time being. What I was searching for was in Lamsai. People facing death every day. I pondered over the distress they went through after finding they were infected with HIV. With no cure at the present, that is as if receiving a death sentence. And discrimination! Many of my friends show great sympathy for people with AIDS, but still, some are reluctant to get close to them. ''I can't stand breathing the same air,'' one friend said, ''I know it's not nice and I feel pity, but I just can't help it.'' This friend decided to support us with goods instead.
I asked John and he kindly accepted my wish to remain in Lamsai as a volunteer. Due to my limited ability to speak Thai and lack of medical experience, my wish to support the hospice with its daily activity did not realize. So I tried to find other ways to take part in the project. I started to write essays in Japanese about the people I met in Lamsai. I began to ask for funds, mainly from Japanese donors.
I taught one patient how to make Japanese paper cranes. Despite his weak eyesight and difficulty in maneuvering his hands, his goal was to make two hundred cranes. He died, however, after counting a hundred fifty six. Another man of my age was so filled with compassion that he volunteered to take intensive care of a patient with severe skin complaints, but fell ill himself and died after unceasing headache and breathing difficulty.
One woman from Cambodia, who probably was already sick before coming to Thailand, walked through the jungles after selling her 12-year-old daughter at 120 US dollars to pay for her medical costs and to bribe people to help her cross the border illegally . She was caught, however, by the Thai immigration and was sent to Lamsai. The hospice staff initially had a hard time as nobody spoke Cambodian. I'm sure she was even more helpless and lonely, but eventually her jolly character made her one of the most beloved patients.
A 19-year-old girl came to lamsai after being sold by her parents at the age of 14 and later turned critically ill. She loved instant noodles and chocolates. Sometimes a little naughty, but I cannever forget her charm.
On time, a handsome 24-year-old young man ''escaped'' the hospice in his pajamas and hitchhiked back to Bangkok to meet his boyfriend. Unfortunately, he was not welcomed and was sent back to the hospice. He died two or three days after he came back to Lamsai. Did he die so abruptly of despair? Or did he go to say his last goodbye to his love? God knows.
These are only few examples of my encounters with the ''little flowers'' of Lamsai. It seems a bit strange now that they are all gone. They were sick, but they were young...too early to leave this world. Average length of stay at the Lamsai hospice is three weeks. Most die in peace. One time, the passage from John 3:8 occurred to me. ''The wind blows wherever it wishes; you hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going.'' Whether they were ''flowers'' or the ''sound of wind,'' they sure were beautiful.
Their death, however, is a challenge. I did not know that people with AIDS suffer so much from multiple symptoms. Fever, headache, diarrhea, difficulty in breathing, hemiplegia, skin complaints. Imagine just having a simple headache for a couple of hours. All I could do was to hold their hand and hum a Japanese lullaby.
''What did these people do to receive such suffering?'' Because they killed? -- no. Because they stole?'' -- no. Or is it to compensate for something they had done in the past? -- no!, because there are many people who lived similarly and perhaps were just not ''unlucky'' like them.
''Is it then God's grace to give them such hardship?'' Well, I know how St. Francis greeted the ''sister fire'' when he went through surgery, so I admire those who can accept difficulties in such manner. I cannot conclude it so simply though, especially when being with people suffering from pain right in front of me.
The answer to those questions, I don't know. Maybe I will never know. The only thing I know, is, that the reality is there. That the people are in pain. Physically, mentally, and sometimes both. What can we do then? What did St.Francis do?
He started from each little step he could take. He didn't go looking for lepers. ''The Lord led me among them,'' he says, so they were there already. He always started from facing the reality and his actions were simple and straightforward. This I truly respect. There are many people, including myself, who would go looking for ''reasons'' and forget the reality and simple things we can do immediately.
I am still far from a point to be able to welcome death as ''sister'' like St.Francis. But one day, when it really happens to me like a thief coming in the night, I hope I will be ready. Until ''she'' comes, I will just have to go step by step facing the ''reality'' of life. I shall not escape.
My faith is challenged each day with the passing of my ''friends,'' but it is also through them that I am strengthened by their will and struggle to live.
HIV might destroy the flesh, but it cannot destroy the soul. As long as I live, they will live with me. And when it comes to my turn...I guess I will leave that up to God.
(Contributed to the Way magazine of the Franciscan Friars of Santa Barbara Provice, U.S.A. in 1998)
