Yuriko Hayashi

In April 1961, I married a senior from my high school and became pregnant soon after. My husband’s mother strongly opposed the marriage because I was a hibakusha.  During my pregnancy, I suffered from malignant anemia, leading to a threatened miscarriage and pregnancy-induced toxemia.  I was hospitalized for half of the nine months until giving birth.  The doctor told me that continuing the pregnancy would endanger both my life and the baby’s and advised me to terminate it.  But I immediately pleaded, “I was born with a weak constitution and was told I wouldn’t live past ten.  I survived the atomic bomb and have lived until now.  Even if my life ends now, I have no regrets.  Please, just save the baby.”

The following February, I was truly overjoyed when our baby girl was born healthy after five days of labor.  Throughout the contractions, my mother stayed by my side, rubbing my back.  Because of this, the skin on her hands peeled off and bled from various places.  My mother-in-law, who had strongly opposed our marriage, didn’t come to see her first grandchild for a whole year after the birth.  Three and a half years later, our son was born.

About 20 years after the bombing, my mother developed thyroid cancer.  Subsequently, the cancer metastasized to her lungs, liver, skull, and other areas, requiring seven major surgeries.  She was in and out of the hospital repeatedly until her death in 1986 at the age of 76.

One month after my mother passed away, I underwent surgery for breast cancer.  My right breast and the lymph nodes under my arm were completely removed.  I was 52 then.  I felt relieved that my cancer came after my mother had passed away.  How much sorrow would I have caused her if she had still been alive?

The following year, one morning on my way to the gymnastics class I was teaching, I was struck by an extraordinary pain in the center of my chest and both shoulders.  I couldn’t breathe in or out.  After I reached the gym, the breathlessness intensified to the point where I couldn’t even speak.  I took a taxi to my home doctor but collapsed upon arrival.  When I regained consciousness, it was already evening.  I was in a hospital bed with my husband and daughter by my side.  I was told by the doctor that I had cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle, and that I had to stay there for a while.  Perhaps due to my regular exercise routine, I was discharged after 11 days and returned to teaching my gymnastics class within two months.

After that, I was struck by bladder cancer and rheumatism, and I couldn’t help but think that these were the effects of the atomic bomb.  Yet, having experienced these serious illnesses, I felt strongly resolved anew, “From now on, I will live honestly with myself, in a way that satisfies me.  I will live each day without regret.”