Koi No Yokan
Sometimes you feel so low you just want to let it all go. Rain keeps falling and falling and you’re sure it’s useless, there’s no point in going on. You wonder why life is the way it is and if you’ll ever find peace of mind. You never seem to learn from your mistakes, and when you need that Someone more than ever before, there is no Someone, there’s no one around to take your hand or understand. You walk the dark and empty road that leads to nowhere because being alive means moving on, ever on. Your concrete smile is hard and fixed; no one will ever know what’s behind it: the iron heart, the fragile spirit. Lost and empty souls stumble through their own lives on every side of you, their hollow eyes staring straight ahead, unaware of your existence. You are, and forever shall be
alone.
You’ve been through so very much, such heartache and disappointment, that this road has become familiar, its dark forest the only way to go. You accept Life the way it is because you’re convinced that, for some reason, you deserve this awkward and lonely journey. You search for company, someone— anyone —who’ll walk the forest path with you, and now and then you find such an escort. He comes out of the shadows of the forest, and with no warning. He promises you love and new beginnings, and you believe him. He speaks of futures with you. And you believe him. Your smile becomes fluid, your heart glistens and beats deeply once more. Your breath returns rich and full. You have been found! Your paper knight gallant walks beside you. You are safe, revived and rescued, thanks to wisps of sympathy and compassion from the gods.
But soon— too soon —your imitation escort, this hologram, wearies of traveling with you. Creatures come out of the forest— they know him, and he knows them. Their world is not yours. Once more you are left to travel the path of the disappearing sun
alone.
And this is when you feel so low you want to let it all go. This is when you stop walking and tell yourself it’s useless, that there’s no point in going on. But you do walk on because being alive means moving on.
But do you know that there’s someone who’s been waiting for you? A real and honest man who’s been waiting all his life for you to founder toward him? Waiting to hold you? Longing to run his fingers through your hair? To gaze into your emotional, tear-glistened eyes? And do you wonder why Life led you to this moment? To this person in front of you? All those fantasies in your head, all those tears you won’t have to shed— after so much pain and disappointment why believe in the One who’s standing before you? Why take the risk at all?
Koi no yokan
A Japanese phrase referring to the intuitive sense that one has just met the person with whom they will inevitably fall in love.
Have you ever met someone, a complete stranger, that in the instant you meet that person, you know he or she is going to affect your life in some profound way? Maybe a life-altering way? People enter and exit our lives for specific reasons, and we don’t always know what those reasons are. Sadly, we often don’t recognize the value that that person had for us until it’s too late, until they’re gone. Some people believe these mysterious individuals are spirit guides or the angels who walk among us. Sometimes it’s all in your mind, and sometimes it’s big and it’s real. Me? I believe in fairy tales and happy endings.
Let me tell you a little story.
Rachel Décoste landed in West Africa’s Republic of Benin in August of 2018. Rachel grew up in Ottawa, Canada, the daughter of Haitian parents. Through a DNA test she had learned that she was a descendant of enslaved Africans and that Benin was one of the countries her ancestors might have been from. She was there on a journey of self-discovery and booked a room at a bed and breakfast in the port city of Cotonou where she planned to stay for two weeks.
On her first day exploring Benin, her host and the B & B security guard were both gone, so she asked a passerby for directions to Ouidah, once one of the most active slave trading ports in Africa. The passerby was a man about to get on a motorcycle, parked just outside the B & B. She politely asked him how to get to Ouidah. He tried to give her directions, soon realized they were too complicated, and instead said, “If you want, I can bring you there.” He gestured toward his bike.
It was about 9:00 a.m. Rachel was wary of trusting somebody she didn’t know, but she decided she was unlikely to come to any harm in broad daylight, so she agreed.
The motorcycle-riding stranger was Honoré Orogbo, a single father and business owner who’d lived in Cotonou all his life and just happened to be passing by that morning. He took Rachel to the city center where she could get a taxi, but there were no taxis headed to Ouidah. Sensing her disappointment, Honoré offered to take the day off and give her a ride to Ouidah himself. They arrived there an hour later.
Just before they were to split up and go their separate ways, Rachel asked Honoré if he’d like to get brunch. He’d gone out of his way to help her, after all. Honoré agreed, touched by the gesture. They sat down to eat. Rachel was aware that she was a woman traveling alone, and while Honoré had been nothing but polite and respectful, he was still a stranger, so she told him she was married. She also didn’t share details of her job or her life in the U.S. She asked
Honoré if he knew of any chauffeurs or tour guides she could contract with for the next couple of days since it would easier than relying on taxis. Honoré contacted a tour guide friend, but he was fully booked.
“So I said, ‘Well, how about you? Can you be my escort?’”
Honoré politely declined, explaining that he wasn’t a tour guide and didn’t know his country’s history all that well. Rachel said she didn’t need a tour guide, just a ride. After a bit of back and forth, Honoré agreed.
“When she insisted, I said, ‘Why not?’” he recalls now. For the rest of the week, Honoré took Rachel to Benin’s most important sites.
While traveling around Benin, Rachel and Honoré talked. Rachel still didn’t disclose many details about her personal circumstances, but she did begin to open up about her thoughts and feelings. Honoré opened up in turn.
“We were very open and very candid, because we were strangers and we’ll never see each other again,” Rachel recalls.
Little excursions and conversations continued through the week. On the weekend they agreed to go to Lomé, the capital of the neighboring country of Togo. Rachel figured this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. In Lomé Honoré booked two hotel rooms and took Rachel to a poetry slam, followed by a bar with live music. They stayed out all night.
“We’re dancing. It’s just pure joy,” Rachel says.
It was around this time that Rachel started to feel things shift. She felt comfortable around Honoré in a way she’d never felt before. She described the situation in an email to one of her close friends back in Ottawa.
“I think this person should be my husband. But am I crazy? I’ve known this guy for a week. Is that stupid? Tell me if I’m crazy,” she wrote.
Her friend wrote back: “Rachel, you are not a stupid person. You have good judgment. You are a good judge of character. If he’s the one, grab him.”
For Honoré, the trip to Togo was a turning point too.
“I think it’s that night that the lighting struck,” he says. “It was not lightning, but it was a feeling of love. I think that’s where the feeling of love started.”
Rachel only had one more week in Benin. She decided she had no time to waste. “I told him I really wasn’t married. And he was very happy to hear that. And we got together,” she says.
“Next day I saw her differently,” he adds. “That’s how the relationship started. Step by step.”
On the evening of Rachel’s departure, they were sitting on the beach, facing the ocean. They talked about the future, and if and how they could make a long distance relationship work. They realized they were both equally committed, and so they decided to get engaged and that Honoré would relocate to America.
It was a big decision. They’d only known each other for a couple of weeks. And for Honoré, emigrating had never been a goal. it would be a big change for him and his son. But Honoré says he decided to “follow my instincts, to follow my heart.”
Sometimes you just know.
