Fumika

I'm not sure if I ever wrote on here about my friend Fumika.  The first year here was a hard one for Felicity.  She was really lonely and very sad.  She and I would travel around the town together, finding parks and other things for her to do.  There is a park a few blocks from my house.  It's a really small park with one small play area and a sand pit.  I didn't want to go far for a park that day so I suggested we take a ball and go to this little park.  While there, a little boy started playing ball with Felicity.  He was so friendly and kind.  So often, the Japanese children stay to themselves but this little boy wasn't shy about interacting with her at all.  His mother started speaking to me in English.  I was very surprised and happy.  I learned that she and her husband and son had been living in Singapore and she and her son had just moved back to Japan a few months ago but that her husband had to stay behind because he had leukemia and couldn't come back because of Covid.  They were apart for many months and he was alone in the hospital for all of that time.  He was finally able to come back to Japan after going into remission last April.  When we met, she had called him in the hospital that night and told him she made a friend and he was surprised to learn that I was American.  He told her, "But you don't speak English."  She responded, "I did today."  She actually speaks very good English but the Japanese are very shy and embarrassed to speak English so they often pretend not to know English.  She explained that they usually all read and understand English but don't speak it very well.  Her English is way better than my Japanese.  She and her son and Felicity and I met up at different parks around town.  She took me to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant and she showed up to my apartment with food when we had Covid last year.  We went to lunch this past fall when the kids were in school and talked for two hours.  I sent her a message in February and told her I missed her and that I was sorry for not finding time to meet up with her but that our family kept getting sick and I was afraid to pass germs to her husband.  She told me that her husband was in the ICU because his leukemia had come back.  For months I checked in with her, prayed for her, put her family's names on the prayer roll.  A week ago she sent me a photo of him out walking with her son and an oxygen tank.  She said that he had pneumonia but had recovered and was released from the ICU, was home, and recovering. He was waiting to have a transplant.  This morning I got an message that he died.  

My heart is absolutely broken for her.  

When I think about those moments of going home from the hospital, telling her son, going to their shared room, making funeral preparations....

It squeezes my heart and I feel a little sick to my stomach.  

I can imagine and in my mind see her suffering and it chokes me.

Did God put her in my path that day at the park?  I think he did and selfishly, I thought it was for my benefit and for Felicity's.  I'd been praying for her to find a friend.  When we met at the park I went home and prayed and said a heartfelt prayer of thanks for giving Fumika courage to talk to me and for prompting her to ride her bike all the way from Shinjuku to a tiny little neighborhood park where Felicity and Reo could meet.  

How can I help her?  Obviously I understand the heartbreak of losing someone you love so personally but I don't even understand the Japanese traditions enough to know what is appropriate in this situation.  She said she would like me to come to the funeral, that her husband was so happy for her to make friends with me and that he had hoped to meet me and my family.  She said that funerals in Japan are two days so I will go and I will skip church on Sunday to go.  Do I go both days?  Do I bring flowers?  Will her family find it odd that I am there?  Fumika is not a Christian.  What does a tragedy like this look like without a belief in a God who loves you and will lift you during your deepest sorrow?  Who will look after her and her son?  How does a six year old make sense of their father dying? If I was supposed to meet her and it wasn't just for my benefit or Felicity's, then what does he want from me now in this situation?  What does he want me to offer her?

This life is full of sadness.  

I know that there is joy as well and beautiful moments worth living for but right now my heart just feels sad.  I have experienced the happiness that comes but getting to that side of tragedy is so, so hard and knowing that she is going through that now feels heavy.