Can Watching a Friend Die Make Us Kinder?

A friend of mine left me a little while ago. He gave me a gift before he went.

My friend Sunao waiting for his customers

I watched my friend Sunao die from cancer just before last Christmas.

After getting a phone call, I rushed to his room. When I arrived, I sat beside him and said, “It’s John. I’m here!”

A few seconds later, he shook ever so slightly and then was still, as if he had something to say but couldn’t quite get the words out. I will never know what he would have said.

Perhaps it was, “Thanks for coming. Sorry, I really have to go.”

When he was a bit younger and much healthier, he was a sturdy man who occasionally had a short temper.

A bit prickly, you might say.

But he was very fun, and more than most people I have met, was also good company.

Sunao and his wife Chieko ran a charming pub just down a hill where I used to live in Fuji City. After enduring long, exasperating staff meetings at my university, I used to wander down to their shop and drink some very nice sake and dine on their delicious food.

One of my favorites was their garlic chicken. It was splendid and went very nicely with sake.

I have many pleasant memories of their cozy shop, though some are a bit fuzzy.

When Sunao got sick with cancer, I tried to visit him and fetch him things he wanted since he was largely bedridden. He was only able to go out a few times on a motorized wheelchair until the cancer had spread so much it was too painful for him to ride in it.

He liked milkshakes, so I would go out and fetch his milkshake of choice for a particular day.

He was particularly fond of vanilla.

As he became increasingly ill, he became more patient and kind. Things that would have bothered him when he was healthy became trivial, and he would quietly wait for problems to be resolved without them affecting his mood.

I wondered if having so little time left made him concentrate on happy thoughts and dismiss irritating ones.

Since I also have a short temper, I want to see if it is possible to work at becoming a kinder person, rather than being changed by a terminal illness.

A few hours after he died, I bought a plant to remember my friend.

The plant I bought is a Pachypodium saundersii, also known as the kudu lily.

It is a sturdy plant with green leaves and thorns.

A bit prickly, you might say.

I wonder if the plant I have chosen to remember him would make my friend smile.

I hope so.