I just left Japan. In the departure process, I surrendered my residency card. The exit authority asked me when I intended to return. My answer would determine whether the official punched a hole in my card, and my heart. Hole punched.
I know I’m writing something true when it brings tears to my eyes.
I use wheelchairs when necessary, and airports are one of the more necessary places. An attendant pushes travellers requiring wheelchairs. The attendants I receive are significantly related to my history, recent or otherwise.
I enjoy learning why they have chosen the person they send. On this occasion, the attendant kindly pointed out to me that I had, he thought, mistakenly ticked the ‘arrested’ box on the exit transit card. I explained to him I had lost count how many times I had been arrested.
I explained to him I was an attorney. My clients, my causes and my morality cause me to go against the grain of some very powerful people; presidents, prime ministers, etc. I explained that Japan, like America, Russia, whereever, jails attorneys. When confronted with an attorney advocating for a client or cause which runs contrary to the chief executive or other official’s wishes, personal or public, the attorney will, oftentimes even more probably than the client, be arrested.
One of my earliest girlfriends was the daughter of an attorney. Her mother and my mother were very close. Her dad had done time for reasons related to the practice of law. An officer of the court can’t practice law if attorneys’s don’t receive at least the same protection from arrest legislators enjoy.
She, her husband and I met 41 years after our high school graduation. Her husband was cool, a mensch. I am grateful for him.
I explained to her, as best I could, that there is no reason to think her father did anything wrong. He may have done everything right. People, including myself, go to jail everyday for doing the proper thing. For standing up. For believing in a cause, a cause to die for.
If you don’t have a cause, or a person, for which or whom you would die, for whom are you living?
