How did I make it to this ripe old
age, you ask?
The mushroom cloud from the pikadon
(A-bomb) wasn't visible to those of us underneath it.
We couldn't tell what had happened.
We couldn't tell what was to come.
Those that survived and tended to
the injured and disposed of the deceased would in turn fall
ill.
I wished to live, and with that
desire and the help of those that fell around me, I, somehow
was allowed to live.
No one knew what an A-bomb was back
then.
Those of us that survived lived in
fear and doubt.
We had done no wrong, and yet our
presence underneath the mushroom cloud branded us.
We the survivors desired to speak
out, but most chose silence for fear of being shunned as
victims of radiation poisoning.
And of course, no one would take an
A-bomb victim for a wife.
That was when papa-san proposed, and
I was blessed with a pregnancy that I thought was no longer
possible.
I wanted to have the child of the
papa-san that I loved so much. But I worried about the
uncertainties that my child would face.
I anguished over the fate of my
child to be, but I realized that I had to live not just for
myself but for those whose lives were cut short.
I wanted to pass along the gift of
life.
As a mother, I was stern. Maybe too
much so for this place and age.
But I was compelled to give my only
daughter, the lone seed of papa-san, the greatest chance for
flourishing in this foreign land.
You see, as a radiation victim, no
one expected me to live this long. Not even myself.
I was fortunate to watch my daughter
grow into a woman, and then a mother.
My willingness to speak publicly put
us at odds sometimes.
I lost all my teeth by the time I
was 30, and break bones every time I fall.
It hasn't been an easy trip.
But as a survivor, I have a duty to
retell my story to anyone that asks.
Peace is deserving of every effort.
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