Your experiences remind me that my experience of life outside the "first world" (or whatever phrase you might use) is characterised not so much by the fact that bad things happen, or even that they happen more often, but by the way life very clearly is lived in the realm of serendipity. You get up and you go to work, you can live 20 years and nothing bad happens to you, despite things affecting people you know.

Or, one day, as for you, it just catches up with you, for no particular reason.

Of course this happens elsewhere as well, but it always seemed to me that in certain places (Jo'burg for you, Mumbai for me) that sense of life lived by luck - or other agency (the famous phrase is Insha'Allah) is just that much more present.

It's good to hear you're thinking of publishing your stories. Savour the catching up with friends and family, it's a special time.