Life and Death

Earlier this year, a colleague friend passed away unexpectedly. I was still in an email exchange with him before his death,  but I was in the dark of  his passing until an office email reached me and an newspaper obituary was found more than a month later.

A heart-shaken news that rendered me speechless in shock.

In a memorial event, I talked about how we became friends years ago. That small speech was the only and the least thing I could finally do for him after he had given me so much help.

Although the small booklet about his life brought back from the event could still be seen on my desk,  the thought about his death has gotten thinner as life moves on.

When I was cleaning up my desk in preparation for the summer, I discovered a small post－it on a folder from years ago when I started working in the university. On the note was the friend’s name and his office phone number in his own handwriting.

Suddenly my thought of him was summoned. He wrote the note to me on my first day at work, telling me that I could call whenever I needed help. At that time I was ignorant enough to take for granted that colleagues were supposed to help each other.

Now he is gone, and the tender touch of his handwriting will never be reproduced again. My first day as a new colleague will never repeat even if the awkwardness as a foreigner will stay beneath the skin for an entire life.

Thinking of him, I cannot stop feeling remorseful for a cause, a cause that I do not know how to name. I got to think that the lifelong work for expatriates (both of us are expatriates of different nationalities in Japan) is attempting to become an insider, while the devastating power of loneliness can hardly be consoled by any form of love. Being a foreigner means to be able to escape most forms of conventionality required by his cultural background, but it also means that he will always be absent from most big events of family and friends.

I also remembered G, my phd colleague, who passed away several years ago. Another regret for me. My thoughts for the dead are mingled with the thoughts for the living. The memories come back to engulf me who always feel helpless with those who are passing. It is undeniably too self-important if I think that I could have done something before or to prevent their deaths, but I cannot resist the proclivity, and have been always full of regrets.

The office number on the small note will no longer answer even if I wish to call now. I am keenly aware that memories are constantly fading out, and so are lives. I do not want to forget but to keep alive the memories about the dead.  



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My small speech for the friend: 

Like everyone here today, nothing had prepared me for W’s decease when an email thread reached me in relation to the news. The fragility of life rendered me speechless at this heart-shaking loss.

W was one of the very first few friends I met after I moved to Japan in 2009. He chaired my first paper in Japan, introduced me to XX university, and generously opened the door for me to the academia here. Above all, he has been a great mentor to me at work.

Our friendship began with a joke I shared with him to describe his devotion to T, his pet dog. It was after a conference in which we met for the first time. The academic setting had refrained me from trying to be witty given that it was my professional debut in Japan. Having seen me reserved, he started chatting about T, and the magic of the topic of animal quickly relieved the tension. I joked that dogs believe that their keepers are divine beings, because mere humans wouldn’t be so capable of gratifying all their needs. To my relief, W was broad-minded enough to be amused by the way his pride as a pet keeper was interpreted, and he gave me a very rewarding laugh. On the one hand, I was fully grateful that he kindly saved a bad joke; on the other, his genuine smile defines a friendly framework to our professional relationship.

Not only was he always there to advise me as a colleague, he was much more of a friend ready to help. Our last email exchange was about my return to teaching after giving birth last March. Before that in the second half of the academic year 2014, W was the kindest when I expressed my wish for some work rearrangement during the last stretch of my pregnancy. He quickly reassured me with considerate thoughts that I should have nothing to worry, and right afterwards he paid several warm-hearted visits to me to make sure everything went smooth.

When I wrote this note, I had just put the baby to bed. I told this small life that a benevolent soul, who once kindly helped to ensure his safe arrival, has passed away.

I have wished that when I need to address, and speak about, W, in public it should be an academic occasion, which we once thought of organizing together. I still remember when W gave me a library tour on campus on my first day at work, his face radiated with the excitement that only medievalists would understand when he pointed out to me the entire collection of Early English Text Society. Just last year in the annual conference, he mentioned enthusiastically about completing some research as the up-coming years would be promised with more time to use.

I am the one who is very regretful for not having been in touch with him more often, for not having expressed enough of my gratitude to what he did to include me in his care. Though still in disbelief in what has happened to him, I do not want to finish this brief note with a shadow of distress. I will always miss this dear friend and remember the kindness that he extended to me.