to eriko 1

It has been 18 days since you left. In the last 18 days, my nephew turned 7. Christmas came and Christmas left. The old year passed, and in came the new. But I couldn’t find sheer joy in any of these occasions. My mind has been flooded with thoughts of you – when we first met, everything in between, and when we last met. I have been doing a little better each day, but realistically, my mind has been stuck in my memories of you.

I often think of how we met in China, and the circumstances that allowed us to meet. We had a 9 year age gap, a language barrier, and from two very different parts of the world. We would not meet in school because you were in beginner Chinese and I was placed in intermediate and later advance. We would not meet in any social events because you hung out with primarily Japanese people, and I stuck with the Americans and Canadians. I never noticed you at school or passed by you on the streets of our campus. But fate was something you and I have no control over. And perhaps it was just meant for our paths to cross, our lives to intertwine, and our souls to meet. That September night of 2004, had you not attended Karin’s party in our dorm room, I would have never met you, and I would not have realized you lived just across from me. That autumn festival celebration, had you chosen to sit at a different table than ours, I would not have drank with you and realize what a character you were.  Logically speaking, our friendship should have never formed. But given these circumstances, it did, and it was so deep, I still feel it through my bones, and it touches every bit of my soul. These are the thoughts that constantly run through my mind, and they are the very thoughts that dominate while I lay in the night.


Some nights I am real tired. I don't know how to shake off these thoughts of you. And every morning, I start over again. I wake up coming to a new realization that you have left, and throughout the day I comfort myself, convincing myself again to embrace this truth. And this resets as a new day begins.