thoughts on waiting/ korea update

Yesterday evening I was expecting a call from overseas, so I took my phone out into my mother's garden (I get shoddy reception in the house) and I waited. I inspected the blueberry plants and I pulled big lemon balm leaves off the bush so I could rub them between my fingers for the smell.

I waited for the call. Every ten minutes or so, I went back inside the house to check my email. Nothing.

My mother came out to water her garden.

My little brother came out and hopped on a bike. I got on the other bike and we chased each other. Then I picked some little unripe apples off one of the no-good trees hanging over our fence, and we threw them at each other while riding.

Of course, after a few apples to my leg, I was done, but my brother kept it up and so I did as well.

I kept checking my phone. I kept going inside to check my email.

Eventually, I brought out Anna Karenina and sat outside to read, one eye on my phone the other eye on my brother who was still throwing apples.

The call never came. I emailed my recruiter and finally came inside, still kinda waiting for the call over two hours after it was supposed to happen.

Although I'm unhappy about not getting the call. I'm really kind-of glad that I got to spend the evening with my family and it was fun and because I knew I was waiting for something, I didn't feel obligated to be doing something else or "get something done." That, I think, is why I sometimes enjoy waiting more than any other thing.

This morning I got an apology email from my recruiter full of blah-blah-blahs and I-don't-know-what-happened's. Oh, well.

For those of you who don't know, the process of getting an English teaching job at a public school in Korea this fall is going quite slowly. Everything has been delayed by my August 17th graduation date and really, it's nobody's fault. It's just how the timing has worked out. But the difficult thing, which I'm just now discovering, is that the PROMISE of a diploma means nothing in the world of Korean recruiting. The promise of a diploma will not get you a job or guarantee you a spot even if you're qualified. It actually won't really even put you in line for a position.

There's a whole paperwork process and without a (physical) diploma you cannot get a teaching visa.

When we first started this process back in May/June-ish, my friend Michelle and I made an agreement with our recruiter that he would place us both in the same program and in the same city so that we'd be nearby. Our recruiter said that he could do this for us and he knew from the beginning that my diploma would be a little later in arriving. Since Michelle has a fantastic resume and she has her diploma already, she was placed around mid-July in a city called Suwon. We were both stoked because Suwon has a an ancient wall, and real history, strawberries, galbi, and it's a big enough city that surely there would be another job for me (after all, that's why we have a nice recruiter who is going to put us both in the same city!) and so it all seemed really settled and really fantastic, and dammit, I even bought connected with Suwon.

Meanwhile, I still had to wait for my position. So, I did.

Near the end of July, the South Korea branch of our recruiting agency called me and told me to prepare myself because a school in Suwon really wanted to interview me and had chosen me out of a number of candidates. I prepared, I had the interview, and it went well. But later that week after I had asked, and asked, my recruiter finally told me that since I did not yet have my diploma the school could not hire me and they did not want to wait. It had been a long process that included me canceling my birthday plans to have the interview via skype and now it was clear that it had all happened in vain.

About a week later, I realized that my recruiter was sounding more and more ambivalent about finding me a placement in Korea, not only in Suwon, but with a public school in general. So, I went online and I emailed a few other agencies and now I have a few more recruiters working for me. But things on the Korea front still seem a little bleak. In fact, according to a few of my recruiters, most of the public school positions have already been filled and there are many, many applicants fighting for the few positions that are left.  To make myself more marketable and more available for other positions, I've enrolled in a 100 hr TESOL program. Private schools are a little more open, but the pay is sometimes not as great and it's really a gamble. Now, I'm applying to both public and private schools whereas before I was only considering public schools.

Right now, my best bet is a position with the EPIC (public school) program in Cheonan. This position is good because it isn't far (I'd say less than 45 minutes by train) from Suwon and the pay is really good and the position is supposed to open up in October, according to my new, wonderful recruiter, Rachel. If you're the praying type, you could pray that everything goes smoothly with the EPIC Cheonan position, and that my relationship with my recruiter Rachel flourishes (because that seems to be important) and that I'm in South Korea by mid-October.

In the meantime, I'm waiting and I'm still hopeful because I know that, as cliche as it might sound right now, it's really all in God's hands.

"And since we've not learned how not to want, we've had to learn, by waiting, how to wait..."
-Li Young Lee

천국의 우편배달부 / Postman to Heaven: A Korean Movie Review

There's an old red mailbox in a vacant grassy field and hurting people come here to send letters to their dead loved ones. One man is taking the letters, reading them, and trying to make answers to questions where maybe there are no answers.

               천국의 우편배달부/Postman to Heaven is a 2009 South Korean-Japanese film, part of a telecinema series of films made for Asahi television and directed by Lee Hyung Min. It also happens to be the very first Korean drama that I've ever seen. Although Postman to Heaven starts out a little rocky with a poorly written storyline, what saved the film for me was it's tantalizing photographic cinematography. This review contains no spoilers. 


The basic storyline of Postman to Heaven is compelling in it's way, but it starts off really slow and isn't helped much by sub-par writing. For the first ten minutes of the film, I honestly felt like I was watching Korea's version of a Lifetime movie and I seriosuly considered walking away. But cheesy lines are much easier to swallow when they're uttered in a beautiful foreign language and you're reading the subtitles and hoping the translation is what's making the characters sound so chiche. I forced myself to get past the first 20 minutes and I was quickly hooked. The postman, Shin Jae Joon, is portrayed by K-pop singer Kim 'Hero' Jaejoong in his first ever acting debut and co-staring with him is Han Hyo Joo who plays a girl by the name of Jo Ha Na. Jae Joon and Ha Na meet in a lush green field where Ha Na has come to mail a letter to her dead ex-boyfriend. She discovers Jae Joon removing all the letters out of a red mailbox where people have come to send mail to those who have passed on before them. Curiosity and anger about Jae Joon's removal of the letters forms the foundation for the couple's blossoming friendship. What happens from here is a complicated, sometimes disjointed storyline where Jae Joon enlists Ha Na to help him in answering the letters in curious and unusual ways, and, well, you can only guess what happens from there.


 Ha Na as a character is a bit difficult to stomach in the beginning. She's whiny and fully of classic Korean aegyo while Jae Joon is sullen and all serious with his hair always in his eyes and his wearing all black all the time. What saved Ha Na for me was that it was visually really fun to watch her frolicking around empty fields and adorable Tahitian coffee shops in lacy skirts, leather boots and long flowing scarves. Fair warning: by the end of this film, you too will want to frolic around an overgrown field while wearing a lacy skirt and a long flowing scarf. Visually, I couldn't be as entertained by Jae Joon as I was by Ha Na and perhaps this was because I'm still not entirely comfortable with the super-skinny, lots of chest-area-showing fashion statements made by the majority of K-pop artists. Call me crazy, that's just how it is. However, when Jae Joon put on some clothes, and a peacoat, and a scarf, and some glasses for the final scene of the film, I did in fact gasp in sheer delight.


At the beginning of this review I noted that what made this film for me was it's photographic cinematography. Postman to Heaven is shot in a muted, natural colour sceme and most of the film takes place either in a grassy field or in one of many little coffeeshops. The feel of the movie reminded me of film photography. The cinematographer employs shallow depth of field throughout the film as a way to focus on particular moments and feelings by putting everything but the character who is speaking out of focus. I liked this method. I also liked how much time the characters spent in coffeeshops, photography studios and the post office. Basically, every conversation that took place in this movie was over a cup of coffee and there were so many close-ups of various brew-methods that my barista-self was squealing with delight at Korea's beloved coffee culture.


The only confusing part about the cinematography was a red cherry necklace worn by Ha Na for different, disconnected parts of the movie. Although Ha Na is always wearing many, many layers, the red necklace stands out quite a bit because her colours are always natural/beige/off-white. I was trying to figure out the significance of the necklace, but I couldn't, and what made it more frustrating was the fact that it just showed up again halfway through the movie, halfway through a scene! Jae Joon wears a trademark necklace in the film as well, but the symbolism for his necklace and his colour-sceme is obvious, Ha Na's red cherry necklace is not. I thought the cherries were a random movie mistake at first, but she ended up wearing the necklace for most of the second half of the movie and in a few scenes she's seen fidgeting with it. I can't quite figure out if there's some significance that I didn't fully catch. If you know, please tell me. 

Postman to Heaven is a touching movie for anyone who has ever lost a loved one, but beware, it is a bit heavy at times. It's full of little sub-stories and intimate moments that literally had me tearing up from beginning to end. To be honest, I actually paused the film quite a bit to made coffee/go outside/ walk around, so it might have had an even greater impact on me if I had watched it all in one sitting. 

Things accomplished.

Today:
1.) Woke up.
2.) Worked 8 hours.
3.) Drove to Seattle and parallel parked in the tightest space.
4.) Brainstormed self-introduction lessons for Korea.
5.) Easily found my way from downtown to Ballard without getting on i-5
or getting lost.
6.) Discovered amazing new coffeehouse in Ballard called Ballard Coffee Works.
7.) Drank a $7.00 cup of drip coffee! Eep! I had no idea! The barista asked me what kind of slow-brew I wanted and I asked her what she recommended and then she rang me up! It was a delicious cup of single-origin Sumara brewed with a Chemex, but still, the price was steep!
8.) Had a thoughtful theological conversation with a friend.
9.) Sang 'Be Thou My Vision' and 'Nothing But The Blood of Jesus' at Mars Hill. It was wonderful.
10.) Got totally lost because of a detour coming home.
11.) Tried out a new way to get home from Seattle and discovered that i-5 North + 405 South + 522 East is maybe just as fast as going from i-5 to Lake City Way, but it is really, really the long way around. This just  confirms that I've been going the best way all along and I'm alright with that.
12.) Climbed in bed at 10:30pm. That's leaves about 4.5 hours of sleep before I need to wake up for work again.

There are some things that I simply won't miss about being a barista.

Mythology. Or something like it.

Every family has it's own legends- stories filled with the heros and larger-than-life characters of our pasts; the kings and queens we descended from. Sometimes, these are actually mythologies and not a bit of truth is in them. Sometimes, they're true.

My grandmother, Lois, at 15.

This summer my grandmother turned 100 and it was my job to scan the photos and make a slideshow for the gigantic party we threw for her. In the process, I spent a lot of time mediating on her story, which is connected to this other big thing which I rarely talk about.

My grandmother was fifteen when she felt called to preach. That was in 1927. A few years earlier, her father, a pastor, had gone down to California, to a place called Azusa street and everything had changed for them since then. Her father was subsequently kicked out of leading their brethren church and the whole family was branded as "holy rollers." After she was finished with high school, my grandmother went to the closest Bible college she could find which was all the way down in San Francisco. There, she worked in a street ministry and on Sundays she sang on the radio and did a Sunday school lesson. My grandmother was really close with her sister, Verna, and they were in college together.

After college, my grandmother and her sister became the pastors of a tiny church in Oregon. The town had 500 people and the church had 5 members but soon it grew to over 30 people. They rented a tiny house in those days and since it was during the Great Depression, the rent was $5.00 a month.

One winter my grandmother and her sister went out in the snow with some of the young people from their church. They had been invited to go skiing, but since it was so cold, some of the boys lent them some jeans to wear under their dresses. The very next Sunday, they found their church padlocked and it was explained to them that since they had worn boy's clothes, they'd lost their jobs. Early pentecostals, you know how it is.

Lois & Verna as pastors

After that, my grandmother and her sister worked in a mission in Oregon, and soon after they moved to California where Verna fell in love and got married.

My grandmother was alone after that and ministry seemed impossible.

She moved back to Seattle and got a job in a restraunt. One day, a soilder came in. They became acquainted and the soldier said he could find my grandmother a better job. Eventually, they fell in love and got married.

I guess this is the crux of the story. My grandmother felt "called to the ministry" ever since she was 15. As the legend goes, she knew she was never supposed to get married and certainly not to someone who wasn't a Christian. When she met Galon Elihu Prater, she knew and felt it in her heart that it would be wrong to marry him because he wasn't really the right man.

But she loved him.
So, she did it.
She was 24 years old.

This was once just a story to me. Things are different now. I feel as though I understand the story better. What terrible disillusionment my grandmother must have felt when she was fired from her role as a pastor just because she wore men's jeans in the snow. How lonely she must have felt after Verna got married and she was left alone in Seattle. As I was scanning the old photos of my grandmother in her 20's with her new husband these past few weeks, it all became so real to me. I get it. I get where she was coming from and I could never judge her harshly for the choices she made. Who doesn't want to fall in love? Who doesn't want a family?

I don't always understand God. I don't know why some people seem to land on this earth with a dream as far away as the skies and a lifetime of jumping toward the heavens to reach it. I don't understand why others are a bit more ambivalent about things like destiny or calling. Why do some of us feel like there's so much to do while others don't? What will happen if we don't follow our vague inklings?

It's something that we scarcely talk about. Even with my closest friends, it's a subject rarely breached. Oh, I've seen snatches and glimpses of the stars that some of my friends' are jumping for. But I know I can't expect them to be completely transparent when I, too, do most of my jumping and reaching in the dead of night while nobody is watching and when no one can see if I happen to trip and fall.  

I think about it all the time. I wonder if I'll make it, if they'll make it, if any of us heard right about what we're supposed to be down here doing. It's awful important for something that's so hard to talk about.

Maybe we're talking less about our dreams because of the dead economy. Maybe because some of us have become so disillusioned and confused about what to do with this thing called The Church. I certainly miss the days when I didn't question so much, when I didn't find fault in so many people.

There's a happy ending to the story of my grandmother. Years after she got married, after her husband had lived a long life and after she had raised kids and had many happy years, after all of that, she did follow her calling into the ministry. She sold everything she had a started an orphanage in the Philippines and it's still in operation today while my grandmother, who is 100 years and one week old lives at home with us and still whispers a prayer over every plate set before her. I hope that God is pleased with her. I'm sure that He is.

Some days, I'm full of questions that I don't know the answers to, but that's okay for now.

I wish that we all had the courage to talk more about our dreams.

He fought in both World Wars.

My grandmother.

Husband & their 3 little girls in Virginia.

Together.

The hotel they owned in downtown Snohomish.

The start of my grandmother's adventures in the Philippines.

Part of the orphanage...

In the public market..

Transportation. Does that little girl look familiar? 

Dinner time at the orphanage..

image stories

I have not had much time to write anything lately, so, I present to you a blog in pictures. I recently did some reorganizing/cleaning and I'm borrowing a really nice camera from a friend right now, so I thought I'd take pictures of some of my belongings and post them. 

My baby shoes. My mother always talks about how I fit into newborn shoes until I was like, two or something. 

I keep this little purple clown in an old film canister. He's from one of my earliest, strongest, and fuzziest memories. I think I behaved myself while my mother was in a bank one day, and this was my reward. Anyways, it's always seemed important. 

From 2000, in a journal. Around the same time I took a painting class and did a big watercolour of a similar scene. I'm not sure where that is now. 

I forgot that I had left so many drawings in my original journal. This is from 12/2/2000. Oh, so glad I'm not a teenager anymore....

What I inherited when my birth mother died. It's used to water plants.

Coloured pencil drawing from April 1997.  Scene from Prince Caspian.

An attempt at organizing earrings and other such things....

All but one of my film cameras,  I mostly use the two on the right.

Paint by numbers

Train station in Tokyo. Summer 2010. 

Sometimes life feels like a paint-by-numbers kit. Like, it starts off slow and it doesn’t make sense and it’s not always beautiful at the beginning (and all the new mothers stopped reading my blog at that last statement....) But, if you follow the directions, if you just keep painting, everything seems to turn out alright in the end.

I know, I know, of course this isn’t always true. Sometimes life is more like a surrealist painting than a paint-by-numbers, but go with me on this.

I’ve been reflecting on the fact that recently I’ve made a number of full circles.

This week I finished my last test in Japanese at Bellevue College. Golly, it was difficult. After the test, I walked straight to the little piano room that I used to spend so much time in back when BC was my college. That was, of course, before I ever enrolled at Northwest, before I ever decided on my major. I used to play the same two songs over and over and over as I talked to God and didn’t know what to do with my life. I couldn't figure out if I wanted to major in photography, or philosophy, or music, or, God-forbid, I had been tossing around the idea of English. I was always in that piano room. I was often playing that piano even though I was never any good. 

Yesterday, I sat down at the same piano bench and played.

The difference, of course, is that now I have a much better idea of what I’m doing and what *the future* looks like.

I’ve been thinking about the beginnings of everything. And really, recently, I’ve been feeling so grateful.

I took my first literature class at Bellevue in the fall of ’07. We read Life of Pi, James Joyce, Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House,’ poetry by Kim Addonizio, and so so so much more. It all stuck with me; permanent. That fall, I brought my anthology home to my roommates and read to them poems and paragraphs that I loved. They laughed, and I think were maybe a little annoyed with me. They could think of better things to do with their time.

I couldn’t.

I aced the Introduction to Literature class, but I wasn’t seriously thinking about becoming an English major. Not at the time.

At BC, I took my first philosophy class and my first photography class and the world opened up to me in a new way.

In spring of ’08, I took a combination class called Whosespace which focused on immigration in America. It was fifteen credits of photography, expository writing, and political economics. We read The Names, and Catfish and Mandala, and The Beautiful Things The Heaven Bears, and Breath, Eyes, Memory. But my favourite novel that we read was Native Speaker by Chang- Rae Lee. It’s about a man struggling with English as his second language, it’s about language and culture and the alienation you feel when you don’t entirely belong. The class made me think about Genesis and the story of Babel. At the end of the class, we all had to write something. I wrote a poem and it came to me, like nothing else had ever before. It was the first time I’d ever written in an inspired frenzy where the words just poured out of me. And, to top it off, for the first time ever, something I wrote elicited a standing ovation from a classroom of my peers and my professors. 

The piece I wrote had lines like this:

She scribbles black on white figures

and I can’t imagine what that could possibly mean

and

And do you dream in Japanese? Or think in English?

Are you constantly translating your thoughts?

Now, here I am, at the end of all of this, and I’m the one who’s spent the last year scribbling black on white figures learning the language I thought I’d never understand. What was once a wall to me is now a bit of a door. Mind you, it’s a big heavy door that takes all my strength to even crack open, but it’s still more of a door than it is a wall. Now, I’m the one who has been dreaming in Japanese, I’m the one who is always translating her thoughts.

Recently, I’ve been thinking so much of how I didn’t know then what I know now. I’m so grateful to be able to look back and connect the dots. I’m in awe over how much my own words, my own artistic expressions, have guided and steered my life. I didn’t know when I wrote ‘persimmons & bamboo shoots’ that I would go on to study Japanese,  go to Japan,  delve deeper into this whole cultural assimilation mystery. But in many, many ways, it’s because I wrote it that all of that has happened. That's why I named my blog after that poem from Whosespace. In ways, I feel like writing it was the seed for so much of what has happened since then. 

The summer after I took Whosespace, I turned 22 and a friend took me to Korean food for the first time. I was introduced to kimchee, barely tea, and the cute guy who waited our table. The moments of that day are indelible to me because the dinner was expensive and it was my best friend paying and it was just us and that’s how I’ve always preferred to do things, in small groups.

That fall I took a geology class at Bellevue. We learned about rocks using a very simple textbook. It was science for liberal arts majors at it’s best. My lab partners were two Korean guys who were fresh out of ESL classes. The professor didn’t partner us up, we choose our own partners and I don’t know what drew us all together, but we met the first day of class and after that we were inseparable. From them I learned about Korean drinking culture, Jeju island, and the two years required in military service for every Korean male. I learned about Korean names and, gosh, it was a lab class and we had time on our hands and nowhere to go. I learned a lot, and none of it was about rocks. Among other things, they talked about homesickness and how you gain weight so easily when you move to America. I became their English tutor. We’d keep in touch for years afterward.

At the time, Korea was this fearful mystery to me because I only ever heard about North Korea. I knew nothing else about it. I certainly wasn’t ever going to go there, although, I had to admit, Jeju island sounded nice.

The next summer I moved out of the house on Juanita drive and into a house where the main language was Japanese. I became the go-to English expert. I also became the foreigner. I mean, literally, they called me the gaijin. It was incredibly difficult at times because it was literally like living in Japan, but at the same time, I loved it. I didn't realize then how strong that experience would make me, how much I would need that strength later on.

That fall, I enrolled in classes at Northwest. The first class I took was Slavic literature with Martha Diede. There was only four of us students and I was terribly nervous about everything, but I loved it. I loved listening to Diede and I loved our class talks. After Dr. Diede returned my first paper to me with the words YOU SHOULD BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR scrawled in bold in one of the corners, I took a trip to her office and I changed my major. Sometimes I think maybe all you need is a little encouragement to act on what you already know.

A word after a word after a word is power. That’s Margaret Atwood, for you. I love the power of words. Specifically, I love the power of encouragement I’ve seen my teachers yield to change lives. It’s part of what has inspired me to be a teacher.

I had no idea that fall that the members of that tiny little Slavic literature class would come together to form writer’s workshop two years later; Jessie, Michelle, Meghan, even Sarah who was just down the hall in the writing lab at the time; life is full of such beautiful surprises.

The next fall I moved in with new roommates, and Jessie, from Slavic literature was one of them. It wasn’t really something that I wanted to do because I didn’t really know those people, but it all sort of worked out since, in time, I found out that they liked to read aloud from books, too. Another full circle.

Now, it’s almost three years from when I first started at Northwest. When I started, I was purposefully not trying to make new friends. I already had enough friends from being part of a megachurch and I felt like it was hard enough to keep in touch with them. I didn’t want anymore. I know that sounds terrible, but it's true. 

Gosh. I’m so glad it didn’t work out how I planned.

In my opinion, the best thing I’ll take from Northwest won’t be the university diploma, even if it is a first in my family. Rather, the best thing I’ll take will be the people I’ve found who’ve changed my life along the way; comrades and mentors who were completely worth the fact that I overpaid for my private school education.

I’ve been connecting the dots and thinking about how I never could have figured it all out on my own, but looking back, it all makes sense and I fully, completely, 100% believe that Providence had everything to do with it. Paint-by-numbers. I was simply following the vague directions and hoping to God that it would work out alright.

And it did.

I’ve tried to tell as many people in person as I’ve been able, but for those of you who don’t know, I’m currently going through the process of applying to teach English in South Korea with Michelle Meade. That’s part of what makes all of this a full circle for me, the fact that we’re going together, the fact that when we first met, neither of us had any idea that we’d embark on such an adventure together. I couldn't be more grateful. I couldn't be more surprised at where life has taken me. 

I’m excited for the future. I’m excited to share new things. That’s why I started this blog. 

Is every life different?

*This post is kind of serious and I apologize in advance for that.

And is each person’s death the same?

How can that be if every life is different?

Is every life different?

From ‘Dying Stupid’ by Li Young Lee

When my friend Masa died six months ago I couldn’t get these lines of poetry out of my mind.

I’ve seen a lot of death. I’ve had three siblings die, although I only ever talk about the one who affected me the most, my older sister. I’ve had two parents die, my biological mother and my adopted-but-divorced father.

However, when Masa died last January, it was different. I’m going to tell you why.

I met Masa my first week at Northwest University in Fall 2009. That same week I met all the people who are so very valuable to me today, but of course I didn’t realize it at the time. When I met Masa, he was surrounded by friends and he was laughing; those two traits would come to characterize his life.

We became acquaintances. It was easy because I lived with many of his Japanese friends at the time. Later, in Spring 2010, Masa learned that we have something in common through the fact that my little brother has kidney failure. We became better friends after that. 

I never told Masa that I had an older sister who died from kidney failure. 

Masa and I took a class together that summer semester at Northwest. It was New Testament survey with Charette. I loved it, but it was no doubt difficult. However, if it was difficult for me, it was three times that for Masa, who had absolutely no prior knowledge of the Bible, had English as his second language, and was going to dialysis three times a week.

If he was struggling, and I knew he was, Masa never let on. I’m not even sure that Charette knew he was in and out of the hospital daily until I told him the reason for one of Masa's absences.

One night that spring, Masa and I went on a dinner run. We’d both been in the library for most of the afternoon. It was pouring down rain outside. Masa chose a dingy little Japanese place in Kirkland that I'd never been to. I had curry udon and edamame for the first time and over dinner, Masa told me how he came to know God and why he was going to school at Northwest. He said he’d met some people through a program at Shoreline Community College called Talk Time. He said that from these people, for the very first time, he felt a different, real kind of love that he didn’t know had existed before. Previously, he thought that strong love only really existed between a parent and a child, or as romantic love.  He said he’d been very depressed after he found out he had kidney failure and that he was questioning whether or not life was really worth it. But then the people at Talk Time introduced Masa to God and everything in his life changed. Masa believed God could heal him. He’d never before known about hope before he became a Christian. 

I wish I could remember all the details of our conversation that night.

I think I remember crying just the smallest bit.

I know I didn't finish my udon. 

Summer 2010 we both went to Japan. I went to Tokyo as a volunteer English teacher and Masa went to Osaka to visit family. We both came back in August and we both took Biblical Interpretation as another summer course. 

We stayed up late at coffeeshops that were open all night in Seattle. Studying in the summer is kind-of depressing, but it's easier with a friend. No matter how late I stayed, Masa stayed later. He was diligent with his school work. 

Fall 2010 we took a third course together, Temple Imagery. I admit that it wasn’t very nice of me to encourage Masa to take it because it was a terribly difficult course, but he did it anyways. We often sat together in chapel and when they would play the song ‘Healer’ Masa would stand up and raise his arms to the roof and I’d stay where I was, watching him, pleading with God.  Some days, the song would come on and I’d weep uncontrollably. Kidney failure had already taken the life of my sister, it had already made my younger brother's life more difficult, it seemed so unfair that it should have Masa as well. 

Time passed. We took separate courses. I didn’t see Masa as often around school but I knew he was doing well. I knew he was seeing the world and spending all his free time with friends. Masa had hundreds of friends. He wasn’t so much a social butterfly as he was simply somebody that people loved to be around. He was loyal and a good friend. I remember some days we'd be studying and he'd leave suddenly because he needed to go counsel a friend. He was always happy. Always smiling. Always taking pictures and on the hunt for a good coffeeshop.

On Christmas Eve last year, Masa showed up out of the blue at my coffeeshop while I was working. It wasn’t all that uncommon since he often came in from time to time, but this time, he said he was leaving for Japan in a few days. He was looking sharp and healthy and I knew from the news I’d heard on the grapevine that he started dating someone. I was so happy for him. He was so smiley. When I asked to take his coffee order, he hesitated, and that’s when I realized that he hadn’t bumped into me by happenstance; he’d come to say good-bye. He stood there in his nice Christmas Eve clothes and

we chatted and he assured me he’d come back to Seattle from time to time, maybe even as early as January. I considered walking around to the other side of the counter to hug him good-bye, but I didn’t. It seemed like too much. I’d see him again soon, after all, and we both knew I had plans to go to Japan one day so it didn’t feel like good-bye, but I was still touched by the gesture of him showing up on Christmas Eve.

On January 5^th I came home from work to a message on facebook saying that Masa had suffered from a subarachnoid hemorrhage and that he was brain dead and lying in a hospital in Osaka.

There was already a prayer group on facebook that was at around 150 people. I watched over the next few days as that number climbed to over 1,500.

Everyone was praying.

Except me.

I was tearing apart my room. I was pulling books off of hidden stacks in my closet, under my bed, layered on my bookshelf. I was furious. I felt like all the breath had been sucked from my lungs. I had no words. I couldn’t pray.

I was looking for a book called Letters to Malcolm by C.S. Lewis. It’s a short little book about prayer, I remember it having a few chapters on praying when you don’t know how to pray. I was convinced that I needed the book, but I couldn’t find it anywhere.

Finally, exhausted, I gave up.

I knelt on the floor in my room and I wept uncontrollably. I considered giving God an ultimatum: my faith for Masa’s life. I considered telling God that I’d never believe again if he didn’t make good with Masa. I  considered that Masa's death, if he died, would be the end of my Christianity. How could I go on believing in a God who would let something so terrible happen? 

But I didn't have the guts to say that to God. I know my God. I know who he is in trouble and in good times, and I know that no matter what, he's there. Life is really terrible at times and sometimes it's unexplainable, but it's not for us to know, and it's not God's fault that we live in a fallen world- it's ours.

I thought about what Masa would say if he knew about my proposed ultimatum and I decided just to do my best at the praying bit.

I pleaded with God for two days. 

I wasn’t alone. 1,500 other people were also pleading.

When Masa died on January 7, 2012, I cried again, but it was so different from any other death I’d experienced.

I didn’t cry because Masa hadn’t lived a full life or because he’d missed out on something, I knew that he hadn’t missed anything. Masa lived every day to it’s full potential; he saw every sunset and every blue sky. 

I didn’t cry for my own selfish reasons, like I did when my sister died.

When Masa died, I wept for his girlfriend, and for his mother and father, but mostly, I wept for the hundreds of people who he hadn’t met yet, who would never get to meet him, who would never be touched by his life like I was. 

And is each person’s death the same?

How can that be if every life is different?

Is every life different?

In answer to the poem's question, yeah, I think every life is different. I’d like to live a life like Masa lived.