LIII. Ode to a Friend

This is the second week in a row I’ve had to shelve my planned piece because of unfortunate events.

I hope readers will allow me to share something more personal than normal.

You see, we’ve had a family friend who has been ill for some time. My wife's best friend, Ikuko, or "Koko" as everyone called her. Graduating together, working together, bridesmaid, here when our babies came, birthdays, holidays, walks in the neighborhood, watching movies, cooking meals, laughing and talking about everything from royals to religion.

When the cancer came, she fought it. She never gave in or gave up. Never a complaint or a word of doubt. She stayed with us for a while to get back on her feet, then went back to work. As things progressed, she returned to her homeland of Japan. She continued the fight, sharing her stories, her doctor appointments, and keeping up with our kids on the latest news.

And then she was gone.

We live with an awareness of death deep within us, though we naturally resist it as much as possible. When it finally arrives, we find comfort in our rituals and cope with our grief. As I think of our dear friend who left us this week, I'm wondering whether our paths will cross again. If there is something beyond this life that makes sense, I can only imagine her vibrant, generous spirit finding kindred souls and making a home there. Keeping a light on.

That was Koko - finding joy in simple things while bringing her own unique perspective to our lives. She tried teaching us how to pack proper Japanese bento boxes for our kids' lunches, a well-intentioned mission that didn't last long. Our dogs knew the sound of her car pulling up, anticipating the treats she never failed to bring. On our outings into the neighborhood or a trail, even the mosquitoes loved her more and she never failed to find a way to make light of it. With her, we understood how a piece of paper becomes origami, the different types of rice in the world, and what was popular in Japan before it became popular here.

When she needed us, she let us be there for her. After an emergency hospital stay where my wife found her receiving exasperating care, Koko came to live with us for several weeks. "Your wife saved my life," she'd say, but it was something sacred, almost a privilege of being in the right place at the right time.

She recovered and kept busy, going back to work and managing a second job as a hostess, bringing home mysterious "unclaimed" takeout meals that I suspect she'd ordered herself, just to share with our kids. She celebrated our holidays, remembered birthdays, and brought pieces of Japan into our home through stories about her mother with the infectious laugh, her father who still lives in Tokyo, and her sister and niece who seemed closer through her tales.

Age is supposed to bring wisdom, but saying goodbye to loved ones doesn't get any easier. A friend and I once pondered what it would be like to live forever, and we agreed it would be unbearable - having to continuously bid farewell to those we cherish. But that's exactly what makes people like Koko so precious. They remind us that our time is short, and we overlook the things that make us human to our own detriment.

I find myself thinking about Koko's impact in today's world, where some have forgotten the art of building bridges between cultures - that America is a place where differences have always and ultimately enriched us. She became our window into Japan, extending the connection I'd formed during my time there many years ago, making a foreign culture feel like another home.

We knew this time would come, but now it’s final. You always have an inkling of hope, some miracle, that your loved one will return, of hearing her voice in the other room. We drove by her place, which seems extra empty now, knowing she wouldn't return with her laugh, her treats for the pets, her stories from her hostess job. In the quiet moments, I sense this is hallowed ground now, where she pondered whether to keep the camellias out front, deftly used her prized cooking knife in the kitchen, expressed how fun it was to fix her bathroom sink, or yank her Honda lawn mower to life so she could cut her grass.

I’ve lost a few friends over the years. You can’t live a decent long life without loss. I’m always thinking about how I could’ve made better use of the time, wishing I’d known then what I know now, maybe wasted a little less time, or said a few more things. Retrospection helps you to do better, to be better. We all could be better humans. To look out for each other, to appreciate the differences, to realize how futile it is to seek fault when we all end up in the same place.

There’s no civic lesson I can teach or show more than this. Our time here is short, and if you are fortunate, you’ll meet a few people who make a difference in your life, who help to bring out the best in you and get caught up with you on all the things you love and even the things you don’t. If you focus only on your career or building wealth, living for hobbies or patronage, remember one thing.

It’s all left behind in the end.

For our children, and us, there will never be another Koko. But perhaps that's her last lesson to us - that the best way to honor a friend is to carry forward their spirit of curiosity, kindness, and finding joy in life's simple pleasures. To remember her when a certain song comes on, for the bug bites on the trail, for the way she loved our kids. Like her always choosing a plain vanilla ice cream cone when more was available, sometimes the simplest choices make the sweetest memories.

While we truly know nothing about what comes next, I would like to think that Koko will be one of those ready to greet us. That her spirit is happy. In our last text, she knew the end was near and said, “Until we meet again, it’ll be a long time for you all, but just a breeze of wind for me.”

And then she added in how much she hated the auto spell-checker on her phone.

• The Guardian has been the best independent journalism this year, and they just dropped X.

• The big booming alternative to X is Blue Sky. Give it a look. Follow The Porcupine at: @porcpress.bsky.social

• This C-SPAN talk on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense is a friendly reminder on how far we’ve come.

Author Bobby Buccellato wrote this piece. It is abbreviated and shared here with permission.

His name was Alexei Navalny. His smuggled prison diaries have been published to great acclaim. In a just world, he would be President of a Free and Democratic Russia. Instead, he was killed in the dark in a state prison. His crime was running against the nation's president and using the legal system to improve his country. They attempted to poison him twice. They arrested him yearly since 2011, imprisoned his family, and forced his wife into exile. Russia is a truly beautiful country. It's one-tenth of the world, and it has endless possibilities and natural resources. Instead, it has a GDP the size of an average American state. It's buying power and its exporting power is about half that of an average European country. They have no free press, and no free elections, and they are actively trying to destroy both the EU and NATO. There is rampant inflation, food insecurity, and their scientific innovation is now nonexistent. Russia is a joke because for 25 years a little ignorant, corrupt, and spiteful man has controlled her. He recently built another new summer palace, and it's been a dark secret for years that his "hidden" net worth is nearly half a trillion dollars. The income inequality between the Russian oligarchs and average citizens would make J.P. Morgan rub his eyes. But, they have the power, and if they can kill a good and articulate man like Alexi? Well, they can kill any of us! And they do. Every time Russians protest, people disappear. Every time. Alexi was an enemy from within. Remember that.

The next two years in America will see widespread fraud and a deliberate attempt to rewrite facts and history. Autocrats will control the White House and our allies of a century will be treated with disdain. Legends like Navalny will be forgotten. Gird yourself for what lies ahead with truth and knowledge. Corrupted men will work to break down what took centuries to build.

Readers can pick up Navalny’s last written words at their local library, local bookstores, or Barnes & Noble.

Think this sounds crazy? Think again. Years ago, I attended one of the best conferences ever in Atlanta on health and the built environment. A medical doctor from Emory University talked about a program in their hospital where they prescribed patients to spend time in nature. Instead of "take two tablets and come back in a week", the program assigned patients to work in the garden, walk a nature trail, and so on.

There is plenty of research on the time spent in nature and the connection to health. Our healthcare is stuck in a model with minimal focus on prevention and too many hands for profit. If we focused on cost-effectiveness, we’d hurry and move to a universal model and pull in other types of preventive healthcare and further alternatives. It will happen, but only when we have more solidarity with each other.

Thank you for reading this week. We’ll be back next week with more routine observations. As we enter the holiday season, take time to give thanks to postal workers, delivery drivers, healthcare workers, librarians, teachers, sanitation workers, and all the people who really, really keep things running.

Have a week of doing what you are capable of doing. There’s always more than you think.