a visit to my best friend

On Tuesday July 2, I drove to the Bay Area to visit my best friend, whom I hadn't seen in a few months. During the past few months, I've had internal and work-related struggles of my own, and so hadn't really checked in with her. I arrived at her apartment complex expecting a lighthearted afternoon/evening of shopping and dinner, and we certainly did do that, but she also had for me a real life story that was so heart-wrenching it moved me to tears. While we were driving, shopping, eating, and watching a film at her apartment afterwards, we also reflected on life and love, and the ephemeral beauty of having someone wonderful come into your life only to be snatched away by cruel twists of fate. The world is how it is, and we as humans are powerless to avert devastating events and unfortunate circumstances. The only control we have over our lives, at times, are our attitudes and how we face the circumstances that we are placed in. To grieve and despair and question the purpose of life, or to savor and celebrate what we cherish, or to draw inspiration to change our own lives based on what has happened; often times these are the only choices that are left to us, in this incredibly cruel and beautiful world.

It makes me recall a Japanese song, the ending theme of the anime "Shingeki no Kyojin"/"Attack on Titan", which is titled "Utsukushiki Zankoku na Sekai", which can be translated to "Beautiful, Cruel World". Here is a portion of the lyrics to the song, with my translations.

Sono yume wa kokoro no ibasho
That dream is where my heart belongs
Inochi yori koware yasuki mono
A thing more fragile than life
Nando demo sutete wa mitsuke
More than once I have left it and rediscovered it
Yasuraka ni saa nemure
(Now) it sleeps peacefully
Myakuutsu shoudou ni negai wa okasare
(With) my wish invaded by the pounding of my heart
Wasurete shimau hodo mata omoidasu yo
I almost forget it, then remember it

Kono utsukushiki zankoku na sekai de wa
In this beautiful, cruel world
Mada ikiteiru koto "Naze" to tou bakari de
Still we keep on asking "Why" we are alive
Aa bokutachi wa kono tsuyosa yowasa de
Ah, we have this strength, and this weakness
Nani wo mamoru no darou mou risei nado
What will we choose to protect? When reason
Nai naraba
Is no longer there?

Kono utsukushiki zankoku na sekai de wa 
In this beautiful, cruel world
Tada shinde yuku koto "Mate" to kou bakari de... 
We (can) only beg of death: "Wait" a little longer...
Aa bokutachi wa kazamidori  tobesu ni 
Ah, we are like the weathercock that cannot fly
Shinjitsu wa uso yori  kirei ka douka 
(And) whether the truth is prettier than lies,
Wakaranai
We just don't know.
So what was the story, you ask? It's not my story to tell, or elaborate on the details, but I guess I can paraphrase it a little. The life of a wonderful 28-year-old man was recently claimed by cystic fibrosis. He had obtained a master's in philosophy to think deeply about life and death, and he had reached out to touch the lives of hundreds of people. Handsome, intelligent, kind, and caring, he was at that age when everything in the world should have been within his reach to achieve--if only he was not afflicted with the chronic disease called cystic fibrosis. By all accounts he lived his life to the fullest every day, so Inshallah, may he "finally breathe free", in the words of his fellow cystic fibrosis patients, and may his family find peace and cherish the miracle of his life and what he made of it.

Cystic fibrosis is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder, caused by an individual inheriting two copies of mutations in the CFTR gene, which leads to ill-formed CFTR proteins that malfunction and cause the slew of observed symptoms. The disease is the most common of the rare genetic disorders. 1 in 25 Caucasian Europeans, 1 in 30 Caucasian Americans, 1 in 46 Hispanics, 1 in 65 Africans and 1 in 90 Asians carry at least one (recessive) mutation. This is truly a disease that supersedes  race and gender. There is a list of people that are dead or dying from the disease on Wikipedia at this address, and I was surprised that my favorite piano music composer Chopin is on this list. 65_Redroses also appears to be a touching story that made its way into a documentary and onto CNN when the girl died, and I will probably check out that blog sometime in my life even if I'm too wrapped up in my own life to do so now. If I ever strike it rich someday, I think I would dedicate some donations to gene therapy research for cystic fibrosis.