A dear friend I met in Yokohama is seriously ill in the USA, while her husband and two young boys are in Doha. Apparently she wasn't feeling well for a while, and went 'home' for tests (as a lot of expats do depending on where you are when you get sick). Her boys stayed in Doha and went to school, while her husband worked. The boys don't know she's as ill as she is. They are going to tell them when they visit over summer holidays.
She's with her parents and siblings, and friends.
She's getting great care.
She's really sick.
While I respect she wants to keep this low key, there's an unsaid friendship obligation to do whatever we can to help her. If we were all in Yokohama together, we'd be organising cooking rosters and shopping rosters, we'd be picking the boys up and taking them to/from school and sports events, they'd be having lots of sleep overs, and we'd be helping her to/from hospital for tests, and friends would help with translations.
We're not there.
We can't rally around.
We are spread all over the world.
We can only pray (even those of us who don't usually do that) and hope that someone will reach out and respond to the hospitals plea for a donor.
I can share the link to the page and you can too - who knows, someone some where might read this and be able to help our friend, she's only 44 years old.
www.bethematchfoundation.org/goto/MelitaKansasCity
I was going to write about how our life can change in a second, that we need to remember to tell those we love how we feel, that all that BS about life sending us challenges is crap, and that it sucks big time to know my friend is so ill she might die if she doesn't get this transplant and that her little boys are too young to be without their mum and her husband shouldn't have to think about a life with out his gorgeous wife.
But that all sounds so frickin' trite.
We've all known people who get really sick.
We've lost friends way too early.
I'm not even sure why I'm chatting about this. All I know is that someone somewhere might be able to help our friend, and while I can't cook or shop for her family, I can share this ......
With friendship
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I will certainly send this link to my friend in the US - have a close friend in Texas and she can pass it on to her friends across the country. Yes, something like this just stops you in your tracks and you feel such empathy for this poor, poor woman/mother/wife. And yes, everyone SHOULD pray/hope/will her to get well in whatever way they can.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, thank you.
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