I can’t sleep… this evening we learned that our friend is recovering from drug addiction. We’d been out of touch with him and his wife for several months (they live back east). Just five years ago, they were a happy couple attending our wedding. They married a year or two after us, sent copies of their wedding pictures to us in Shanghai, and I swear it was only a year or two ago when everything seemed great.

Good people with hearts of gold. There was so much patience and thoughtfulness and love in the few simple and quiet gestures I witnessed. They were building a life together, a home. They worked, attended classes: there was a plan.

And then this happened. First it was cocaine, then crack. Depleted shared savings. Theft, break-ins, arrests. In the months following, he went in and out of rehab. He’s been clean for two months. That’s the good news.

But now, so many questions, so much uncertainty. I crumbled when I heard the news. How? Why? God damn this world. God fucking damn it.