“My father
found me on the ground and called 119—they pumped my stomach. I lived. This was
my father’s last kindness for me. He never visited me at the hospital. Not once
for two weeks. Instead, Joseph visited me every day.”
Joseph was
a medical student from San Francisco who was doing an internship in Japan. It
was his second to last semester in medical school and he was gaining practical
experience working with an emergency response team. Although his days were
incredibly busy, he somehow always found time to stop by Minazuki’s room.
“Those were
some of my heaviest hours. Alone, I would have drowned in my own dark waters.
But I was able to resurface because of those conversations, those short, daily
conversations. Because of him, I am still alive.
Their communication had been stilted
due to Joseph’s primarily medical Japanese and Mina’s grade-school textbook
Japanese-English. But somehow, according to Mina, they managed to converse on
subjects ranging from culture to music to religion.
“Religion
was Joseph’s favorite topic. We spent a long time talking about Christianity.
He grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. The Bible Belt was what he called it. I
imagined a belt made of books and it made me think he came from a very
interesting place. Joseph always told me that I was alive because God wanted me
to be alive. And I should accept Jesus Christ as my savior to become closer to
God and better understand His plan for my life. I listened politely, but in my
heart I felt a different truth.
On my last
day in the hospital my stomach had finally settled and I was feeling brave so I
asked him ‘why did you visit me every day?’ I was not sure I would like the
answer.
He took pause, then answered, ‘as
we took you into the ambulance, you struggled for a brief moment even though
you were barely conscious. You reached out your hand to your father and asked
him not to leave you. Only I noticed and only I saw his response, which was to
turn his back and return to the house. I knew at that moment I would not leave
you while you stayed at the hospital. No one should be alone, Minazuki.’
He then told me that if I accepted Jesus I
would never be alone. That Jesus would save me. But it was too late. I had
already accepted another savior, and I would live on because of what he had
done for me.”
June was losing feeling in her
fingers and toes from the cold. Her mind sluggishly sorted through a few things
to say to Mina, but coming up empty she said nothing and they continued
building the porch in silence.
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