ブックタイトルeigo13

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eigo13

back, but you came back, even though you had got burned severely. Welooked for your sister in every camp for atomic-bomb victims, but we couldn’tfind her. We couldn’t get back one of our daughters, but you came back hometo us! I really wanted you to survive. I desperately did everything I could doin order to save your life. I didn’t know that you would have terrible scars ofthose burns. I’m sorry about them, but there is no shame in having thoseones. It is because you got those in the war. You are just like woundedsoldiers who are honors to our country.” She hugged me and patted me on theback kindly.In 1959, I got married. Two years later, my daughter was born. She hada good appetite and drank my breast milk a lot. She was chubby and I wasreally happy. At the age of three, she had a health checkup. The doctor saidthat she had a squint and had weak eyesight. She was also far sighted.Then the doctor continued to say, “Without medical treatment, she wouldbecome blind.” The shock made me shiver. I asked him whether my radiationexposure had affected my daughter. He was not sure because there was littledata about that. Looking at my daughter’s face, I thought, “How hateful!The atomic bomb torments my little daughter who doesn’t know anything.”My sister who never came home was going to get married in theautumn that year. We’ve never heard anything about her since then. Myparents wondered where she was when the atomic bomb was dropped. Wedidn’t have any idea about where she ran to or how severe her burns were.We could not gather her ashes. We could not give her a proper burial. Twentyyears after she went missing, her fiance sent back to my father tankas,Japanese short poems, which my sister composed. She had sent those tankasto her fiance who was serving in the military at that time.I pray to God to keep you safe.You have left me for military service.I recall your manly figure.I look toward the base where you are.MasakoThese tankas were written by hand beautifully on a piece of letterpaper. Looking at my sister’s handwritten letters, my father was weeping.At last, they were returned to him. They were articles left by the deceased,my sister. I really felt for him.My father appealed to the nation to give disability pensions to