Mrs. ———- said I was like a soldier coming home from war and many wouldn’t understand what I’ve seen and experienced. I realized it’s more than that. It’s also that it changed me and how I now see the world and others. It’s about lenses and reference points. One needs an adequate or sufficient set to really get it. 

I asked my prosecutor mentor where he put his feelings on his casework. His reply was the most comforting and honest answers I’ve ever heard about this topic – “I don’t know.” That was all I needed to hear. I don’t think much about them to be honest. I had enough light to forget. That’s what it’s about. 

Processing is important and I don’t discount or minimize it but that’s not the whole solution. It is about light drowning out the darkness. We are more than our pain and even healing from it. We are who we are created to be. I was destined for all that I did. All of it. And I was destined to meet you.  

Malaysia was a Third World country. It wasn’t as bad has others. But it was and still is politically unstable. There isn’t much freedom of speech, religion, and other components. The government arrests whoever they deem as threats. Christians can be targeted and it is difficult to practice. Until the early 1980s, there were still Communist insurgents living in the jungles. The poverty isn’t like US poverty. Schooling isn’t either. We had uniforms, strict hierarchy, and the discipline was harsh, even brutal. I once was made to stand in the sun for an hour. The temperature was over a hundred degrees. This is a different world and when I got to the US, I already had this lens to view the world from. My parents, even though flawed, did take us to travel. I saw some other countries and it also colored my perspective. 

Environment matters a lot. Where we live, our families, our friends. Mine were always mixed. Over the Christmas break, the kids and I stayed at my old office in Philadelphia. It was first converted into condominiums and then into a hotel. It was nice to visit and show the kids a significant piece of my history but it also brought back unpleasant memories. Till the day I die, I’ll always be a Philadelphia Assistant DA but it wasn’t sunshine and roses. The building itself doesn’t have a lot of windows that look outside. My office faced an alleyway and once in a while, a mouse would walk by my window. There were mice in the office too. I think we can romanticize the past. I learned a lot in this job but I was also bored to tears at times. My colleagues were competitive and while I did have friends, I wasn’t close to many people. I don’t think it was a matter of holding it in but I intuitively knew many wouldn’t understand. This has been the case for much of this existence. 

How could I explain Malaysia to my junior high and high school peers? The immigrant experience to those who were born here. And now all the other things. Maybe it doesn’t really matter all that much. The world does what it wants and so do people. The magic and mystery of it all is that somehow things, if they don’t exactly fall into place, at least somewhat or somehow makes sense. The seams can hold. I don’t think I broke much and if I did, it wasn’t permanent. 

I’ve been also thinking about healing and I wondered why I am doing it in Maryland in a relatively slow fashion. I realized that sometimes the slow way is the right way. I narrowly avoided surgery in the hospital and it was the antibiotics that was the main treatment. Surgery would have been quicker but the damage would have been greater. And ironically, so would have been the overall recovery time. Sometimes, when a bone is broken and not set properly, it must be re-broken to have it heal correctly this time around. I’ve also heard this – that a healed bone is stronger than before. It is true of other surgeries. The replacement tendon or ligament is sometimes stronger than the original. 

Our journeys all wound us in one way or the other. Some can be self-inflicted but I suspect most of it isn’t. We also heal to be more of who we were meant to be. 

I thought and still think you are part of the healing. 

And more.