Facing ugly facts

In its June 21, 1999, edition, Newsweek reported that a 14- year-old Japanese boy killed a girl by crushing her head with a hammer in 1997. Two months later, he decapitated a younger boy and displayed the victim's head outside a junior high school in Kobe. The parents failed to notice their son's cruel behavior, which included stealing thermometers to extract mercury to poison cats. He kept the tongues of the poisoned cats in a jar in his room. Naturally, the boy's parents were shocked when the police arrested their son.

In order to overcome their frustration, the parents wrote a book, Giving birth to boy-A, which became an instant best-seller with initial sales of half a million copies. In this case, a bad experience became a windfall. The parents plan to use all the royalties to pay damages to the families of their son's victims.

We are apt to believe in the saying: "A bad tree bears bad fruit" but, in this case, the father is an ordinary salaried man who has never violated the law. A lesson to learn from this story is that even the most horrible experience has its advantages. If we dare to face the facts, we may be able to overcome the most unpleasant obstacles in life.

A. DJUANA

Jakarta