MERI Center Blog

This is Palliative Care in a Nutshell

 

Yesterday morning, Dr. Mike Rabow read “Cargo” by Greg Kimura.  His name sounded familiar so I googled him and realized that he wrote about the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Bruyeres by the 442nd Regimental Battalion, made up of Nisei (2nd generation) Japanese American men and my grandfather was one of those men.  Mr. Kimura died in 2017 from cancer and on his Forever Missed page, I found this quote:

Resist the world's numbness,
and your passion revive,
so when death comes to find you,
let him find you alive.

- Greg Kimura

To me, this quote is palliative care in a nutshell.  Let us help you resist the numbness, the pain, the suffering, so you can do what you love, be with those you love, and make the most of the time you have. 

I didn’t know Greg Kimura, but I am so grateful to find him in both my personal and professional life, particularly this week as February 19th is the annual Day of Remembrance of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.  So many threads weave intricate patterns in our lives and sometimes we don’t always see them until we look closer.  Thank Mr. Kimura for sharing your gifts with us, the world, my world, most certainly needed them.  You have left an inspiring legacy.

Cargo

by Greg Kimura

You enter life a ship laden with meaning, purpose and gifts
sent to be delivered to a hungry world.
And as much as the world needs your cargo,
you need to give it away.
Everything depends on this.

But the world forgets its needs,
and you forget your mission,
and the ancestral maps used to guide you
have become faded scrawls on the parchment of dead Pharaohs.
The cargo weighs you heavy the longer it is held
and spoilage becomes a risk.
The ship sputters from port to port and at each you ask:
“Is this the way?”
But the way cannot be found without knowing the cargo,
and the cargo cannot be known without recognizing there is a way,
and it is simply this:
You have gifts.
The world needs your gifts.
You must deliver them.

The world may not know it is starving,
but the hungry know,
and they will find you
when you discover your cargo
and start to give it away.