The mother of all what ifs.

How do you explain where life has taken you? or, is the other way around?

Which decisions have you taken that brought you where you are?

Which decisions OTHER PEOPLE took [to bring] brought YOU where you are?

A little more than a month ago, one of my very good friends (and for a while a roommate) passed away. He was 43. Had been diagnosed with terminal cancer more than a year ago. He was living in US since two and a half years ago; the company he worked for closed the design office in Guadalajara and invited him to move to Idaho. In there, he joined a team and a group of people he knew since long ago (from school and from work) and before the move he got married; so he was not alone, but I wondered for a while if he missed his family (even though one of his brothers was living and working there), his parents and sisters.

This is a very Mexican thought; same with the "what if" questions. I do not know how to answer.

My father went on vacation to Sinaloa (and still is there, 46 years later). My grand-grandmother decided to send my mother to Junior High School, at a time, a place and in a family where education for women was not prohibited, but neither considered completely OK.

Before that, my aunt and uncle from Guadalajara (physicians both of them) decided to wait for a job in Sinaloa, instead of Chiapas (I would be in the EZLN right now!); and when the "Miguel Hidalgo" dam was built my grandfather and his brother decided NOT to go to an "ejido" (communal property system for land that was much in vogue from the 40's to the 80's in Mexico) and instead moved to a "colony" where they were owners of the land.

I decided to come to TJ instead of looking for another job in Guadalajara or applying for a scholarship overseas (France was my first choice, England the second).

With all of that (here is the Mexican culture kicking in):

Did my friend died because he decided to go to Idaho?

See you around.