Hiroshima and I

August 6 separated by 69 years.

In 1945, August 6 witnessed the detonation of the first atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. I was always fascinated by the shadows of people left on walls. I'd always heard they were vaporized by the blast, but could never figure out why the wall wasn't vaporized as well.

Wall to Wall

And while a terrible event in a terrible war, more Japanese were killed by a conventional firebombing of Tokyo that March. And who needed bombers? The Japanese army in Nanking, China in 1937 killed around a quarter million Chinese using rifles, bayonets, and swords. (The Japanese used the bombers to sink the gunboat U.S.S. Panay, killing and wounding American sailors, but  later apologized and paid us some money.)

Enough of this grim Second World War stream-of-consciousness.

In 2014, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Just me. Not an entire city. But tragedy involving my life becomes all-consuming. ('But it's ME! How can this happen to ME?')

A year has passed and I'm a man without a prostate, but cancer free. (At a physical examination yesterday, I told the doctor he didn't have to check my prostate anymore—unless he wanted to. He took it in the correct spirit.)

For all my physical gyrations the last twelve months, I'm grateful to be mending and married, as I can't imagine going through this event without the help of my darling wife, as well as family and friends.

And so today some remember a large tragedy and I remember a small one. Life advances inexorably. As for this August 6, say what you will, but both Hiroshima and I are doing better than Detroit.