by Chad Lupia
Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.
At the hospital, I listened to my eldest daughter speaking with the nurse, answering honestly what she’d hidden from me.
Sometimes, my daughter was saying, she denied herself food and water for days on end while cutting herself in her room, obsessing on suicide.
I’d been practicing Buddhism for about a year by then, having joined the SGI in 2019—and just in time; the pandemic marked for our family the start of an unrelenting battle for hope.
A few months into lockdown, the eldest of my two daughters—always full of song and dance and wit—fell quiet. Developing an acute fear of catching or spreading COVID-19, she lost focus at school, stopped speaking with friends and holed up in her room, scrolling on her phone for hours on end. She rapidly lost weight and we intervened by taking her to the hospital. It was there where we heard, in February 2021, her account to the nurse. Deemed in critical condition, she was admitted for 30 days to the ICU.
“Clear the house of sharps,” the nurse advised before I left. “Anything that could be made into a blade.”
Coming home from the hospital, I set to work, going room to room, sorting our things into “safe” and “dangerous” heaps. It began as slow, methodical work, but as the hours passed, I grew desperate as I turned our home inside out, into something I no longer recognized.
I came to my senses in the kitchen, blinking at the emptied, outflung drawers and the piles I’d made of our everyday things—spice jars, picture frames, sodas and plates—as it dawned on me that everything—just about everything in our home—could be made into a “sharp.”
Never in my life had I known fear like this—a fear for my daughter’s life that asked, the moment I opened my eyes each morning: Will she make it through the day?
But never in my life had I known friends like the ones in the SGI who came around me then. Each morning, I woke to a text, often more than one from the guys—a word of encouragement, a passage from Nichiren Daishonin or guidance from Ikeda Sensei—that brought me back into the orbit of hope. So many friends in faith came often to chant, study and talk. With every visit, every call, every text, every daimoku chanted together, they conveyed in no uncertain terms: We are here and we will not let you fall. In the pain and the madness of it all, they were fully present, never afraid. There’s no question that their grounded, determined friendship allowed me to show up similarly for my eldest daughter—not wracked by fear or guilt, but fully—day in and day out, in the pain and madness of it all.
She was at her mom’s when her mother called in September of 2022. My stomach soured before the phone was at my ear, and dropped off a cliff when I answered. My ex-wife was screaming: Our eldest had locked herself in her room and was not answering the door.
I don’t remember the drive. Suddenly, I was in front of our daughter’s door, frantically picking the lock. I threw it open and found her just in time, nearly unconscious but alive. Her mother called the police. My daugther was taken to a mental lockdown facility, where she stayed for two long, horrible weeks.
In the immediate aftermath, my district men’s leader sent me guidance from Sensei that I engraved in my life:
“You have to change the karma that makes you suffer from family discord. There is no other way than to dramatically transform your own life condition. When you change your state of life, your environment will naturally start changing as well. This is the principle of the oneness of life and environment. A grand palace of happiness exists within your own heart. Faith is the key that opens the door to that palace.” (The New Human Revolution, vol. 1, revised edition, p. 43)
I’ve always been a passionate person, always worn my feelings on my sleeve. But now I began to speak with friends and family, not only to cope, but with a deep sense of mission to show—not only my daughter, but all people—that poison can be turned into medicine. I discussed Buddhism widely and openly as the source of my strength and hope for my eldest.
And with every person I spoke to, every cause I made for the sake of the Law, I felt empowered, confident that my causes were reaching my daughter’s life. Though the situation was no less dire, though there really was no end in sight, I began to smile more often, speak to her with more confidence and take action more freely. And it was freedom that I carried into everything I did—as a father, friend, employer and community member. I began to experience the true meaning of faith—joy and calm in the midst of raging waves.
In January 2022, we’d reached out to a rehab program in Hawaii. Unlike others we’d looked into, this one was inexpensive, based not on profit but compassion. It was located on a farm in rural Hawaii, where the youth went without cellphones or social media as they grew and harvested produce to distribute for free to those in need. The program seemed to grasp a core truth of the human spirit—that it thrives when supporting others. The only problem was the waitlist. “We’ll put her on there,” the woman told me but cautioned admission could take years.
In December, the same woman called again, explaining that a spot had opened up. “This never happens,” she said. But it had. My eldest began the program later that month. In February 2023, she came home a changed person, improving by leaps and bounds.
Looking back, it’s difficult to believe what I’ve made of my life. I became president of a startup in 2019, right before our family crisis, the demands of which should have broken me. But my company, my family—both my daughters and me—are thriving. I look back on that long, long winter and see that I did not merely survive it, but grew in every way imaginable, drawing on reserves of strength I did not know I had.
My eldest will begin college in the fall. She has close friends and a boyfriend, too. Like me, she not only survived, but has become—in answer to the prayers of so many tremendous friends in faith—a strong, bright, kind person, winning the battle for hope.
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