Life in Japan

[IMOA]

I've been a bit quiet for a while so I think it's about time I put out there whats been going on

About 2 months ago my daughter was killed in a car accident. For those that don't know me I got married about 20 years ago, my daughter was born not much after that and split up with the wife a couple of years later. For the last 20 years I've generally wandered about without much purpose with the anchor being that my daughter thought I was pretty decent. Now, well, I'm all a bit at sea trying to figure out just what I'm meant to be doing with my life.

I was in Osaka at a customers office when the call came through. It was early evening and we had just finished a meeting and were getting ready to go to one of my favourite izakaya in the area for dinner. Things were good, we had just sorted some drama's, we were about to go and celebrate and my world came crashing down. From there it took me about 40 hours to get home, it was probably the loneliest 40 hours of my life. Well, not probably, it was utterly miserable.

Get back to australia and I'm just staring at the wall. I'm the other dad, an outsider at my daughter's funeral. Everyone is pleasant and all but there's nothing quite like farewelling your only child with a group of people who wished you didn't exist. To be fair some good friends are there who gave me a lot of support but I want out, I need to be useful so I head back to Japan.

One of the good friends that made it to the funeral is a mate that's fighting cancer. If you remember my japan thread from the last place he's the guy that I always go to suzuka with for the F1 and has crazy nights out doing tequila shots in strange bars. About two weeks after I get back to Japan I'm at the same customer in the same meeting room and a message comes through that he's lost his fight with cancer. Three weeks earlier he's flown up to be with me at my daughters funeral, 3 months earlier we've been tearing tokyo up and stumbling home at 8:00am and he's gone.

Now I'm angry. When my daughter died I put a lot of effort into not losing control but now there doesn't seem like much point. The gates are open, the horse has bolted and I'm on a bender from hell. In the past month I've learnt a couple of things, the first is I can be a right prick when drinking angry and the second is that getting home at 9:30am on a wednesday morning makes people at work very concerned. Especially when it's the third time you've done it that week.

Things are slowly starting to right themselves now. I still have my moments but I'm getting back under control. I've got a week to go on what I'm doing here and then work has told me I have to go on leave. On the upside they're springing for some flights to europe so I can go to the monaco grand prix so I can't complain to much about them. Mainly they/re worried about me completely losing the plot which would leave them somewhat screwed for the project here but it's been a year since I was in europe so I'm not complaining.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing next bit it looks like a couple of months of rest then I'll be moving to Osaka. Not something I want to do but thas where I'm needed so I might as well give it a proper crack. After all, things can only be up from here.

[Cam]

Holy shit. Sorry to hear. Best of luck getting it together.

[Random]

Not much to add to Cam's post.

Let us know if you need some US time.

[CudaMan]

Damn. So sorry to hear about your loss. Take care of yourself, Greg.

[Godson]

Wow. I am sorry for your losses.



Check your PM.

[TheBenior]

Damn, sorry to hear.

[Dicknose]

I remember meeting your daughter once, was a few years ago.
Can't imagine what it's like to lose a child.
Hope things improve.

[Leon]

There aren't the words.

Good thoughts going your way from me, in a tough time.

[FaultyMario]

My deepest sympathy.
I don't know what else to say, Greg.
But if you think there's any way I can help... just say it.

[samoht]

That's awful, there are no words.

Thanks for sharing.

All I can say is, there are plenty more people who also respect you, count on you and value your being around; us lot for one, your colleagues for another.