Third Culture Kid(s)

Since I deleted all my old blog posts when I closed down the typepad account, I’m just posting this entry from last August in order to file it here.

Some of you know that M.’s family (father, grandparents, aunt/uncles) was in Hiroshima Prefecture* at the end of WWII, and his grandmother and an uncle were actually in the city at the time of the atomic bombing. M.’s dad, another uncle, possibly his aunt, and his grandfather (who worked for an elementary school) had been evacuated with their school to the countryside, but his grandmother remained in the city with the baby.

M. says that his grandmother really didn’t talk about what had happened, so what he knows has been passed down from his father.

At the time of the bombing, M.’s grandmother had just finished feeding the baby, who was young enough to still be nursing. She remembered being knocked out as she walked across the room, but not why it happened. She didn’t know how much time had passed when she regained consciousness, but her first thoughts were of the baby. They were living in government-owned housing at the time, their own home having been requisitioned by the Japanese Army, so the home was fairly cheaply made - lots of light wood and shoji. She began searching through the rubble when a man came along and offered to help her. Together they searched until they found the baby, who was safe except for a few scratches.

It was only after she’d found the baby that M.’s grandmother began to notice things around her - the destroyed neighborhood, homes on fire, people screaming for help, and a heavy purple rain coating things in long dark drips. She turned to thank the man who had helped her, and it was only then that she realized that half his face had melted away. She asked if she could do anything for him, and he replied that he only wanted a drink of water. She had to refuse, but he thanked her and walked away.

Groups of people began passing in front of the house, all walking away from the city. Someone told her that Hiroshima was on fire, and she couldn’t go in that direction. So she joined the river of people walking away. She had no clear memory of how much time passed - it could have been hours or days - but she remembered seeing people drinking water from a river and, later, seeing those people falling in and their bodies piling up against the bottoms of bridges.

Eventually, she arrived at a hospital and joined the line of people waiting to be seen by a doctor. After a little while, she was pulled out of the line and told to follow someone - either a doctor or someone helping out. She asked why, and the person said, “Just come with me.” She asked again, and was told that those people waiting in line were dead already, but they were set up to help people with injuries. She was confused and thought that they must have wanted to look at the baby’s scratches. When she was seen by a doctor, however, he told her that they could help her, but they didn’t have any anesthetic.

M.’s grandmother was confused by all of this and asked what they were talking about.

“Your leg - we can remove the stick.”

She looked down and found piece of wood sticking through her leg.

The story gets fuzzy after this - I guess she really didn’t have much more to say about it. They removed the wood from her leg, and despite the lack of anesthesia she didn’t feel a thing. It was much later when the family was reunited - and during this time they had no way of knowing if the others were alive - and that happened through the Red Cross. M.’s unsure of how long they stayed in Japan after this; long enough for his grandfather to see the school back up and running, although in what condition he doesn’t know.

*A prefecture is equivalent to a U.S. state, for all intents and purposes