'It took gold.' my colleague answered when I asked what it took to get on the boat. 'It took everything I had.' When Saigon fell, many of the people with higher education fled the country. Little did I know all those years ago, that all those people who were floating off the coast of Southern California waiting for political asylum and refuge would end up being my coworkers and friends.
Over lunch, one shared with me her story. How hard she had to work to get on the boat, to make a life for herself here, to become a doctor. About the struggle. And how her husband was 'lucky'. The opening on the boat 'just happened, and he was there'. How he found work easily.
What caused the resentment was how in this new country the couple's marriage remained like it would have been in the old country--he relaxed and she did all the work. She earned the money, cleaned the house, and was going back to school.
It made her terribly depressed.
Suicidal ideation happened frequently for her.
She was like, 'what good is there for me to be worked so much like this everywhere I turn?'
I cannot imagine the struggle of a medical student with a husband and two kids. I barely made it 'alive' going through it single myself. It takes a lot out of you. There is time for only one thing you love. For me it was dancing. For a different person, one of my teachers, it was going to the gym.
Even now, she is not happy. They have been divorced for years. She doesn't understand his happiness and ease.
(I think some of this has to do with his ability to 'manifest' a little better than she could--like the boat space 'just opening up'. It also has to do with the family belief that 'to survive is hard work' she might have inherited from her family of origin.)
More on this, and how it connects to us as Light workers at this time of planetary liberation, at:
http://reikidoc.blogspot.com/2013/07/reflections-on-boat-people.html
