I have many friends, and I am so appreciative of that. The fact that I learn from each one of them is something else I truly appreciate. I do not see these friends as often as I would like, and therefore lose chances to not only enjoy that friendship on a personal basis but also to learn from it.
But now I have a new friend to add to my cherished list.. I’ll call her Cathy, and we came together under unusual circumstances. We met at a tragedy which transformed her life in many ways; I happened to be present for it and was able to offer some solace and help.
That was the basis for friendship, but it did not accelerate quickly. We still had to get to know each other better; we each had to accept each other’s erratic ways.
But we also learned we share a lot, both in happy events, and in tragedies; we found we could talk about things and come up with different ideas; we found we could differ on how solutions should be found. But through it all, we found we enjoyed evening chats a few nights a week when we could enjoy a glass of wine perhaps share it with someone else in the house, but think, with much laughter and happiness, we have solved the problems of the world. We did admit, however, that while we solved all the problems, we could not find anyone ready to listen to and follow our solutions. But we keep on trying.
My friend Cathy is Japanese by birth. Older than me by a few years, and lived in her native country during the War when we bombed her nation. She came to the United States a year after that terrible war ended. She settled in New York. Eventually married and had children. Moved to Jersey City, got divorced, and commuted to New York daily to pursue her career as a dress designer for one of the fashion houses. All while raising her two children with love and discipline.
So in one of our early talks I asked Cathy how she could move to the United States, to a country on which her country had waged war, to a country that dropped the bomb that wiped out so many of her people and changed their lives together.
Cathy, a nonagenarian, sat back, thought a minute with that bit of a smile I learned to recognize as a sign she is thinking deeply and reliving decades of memories. Cathy likes me asking her questions. She likes to think before she answers, and she has memories that flash in front of her before she responds. I have learned not to be surprised by her wisdom.
“Why did I come to the United States?” you ask? Calmly, she explains, “ Why not? You won the war and I wanted to continue my trade as a designer. This is where the opportunity was.”
But how could you come to a country that had killed your people? Whose people your country had killed, two nations who could not belong?
Cathy looked me in the eye, thought for a minute and said, “The people I worked with in New York? The people I meet in the street? They did not do anything to me. They should not carry any guilt . I do not carry any guilt. They did not do anything. And I did not do anything to them. Why cannot we just be friends, I wondered.
And that is how peace is accomplished.
