ENCORE #151! – It’s Funny, But It’s Not – Breast Cancer and the Bombing of Hiroshima

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer in March of 2011, there was a deafening silence from the men I knew. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry first appeared in July of 2018…

It’s funny, but it’s not that the whole breast cancer ordeal feels over.

It’s not over. My wife continues to live in the shadow of the aftermath. Sort of like the old move, “The Day After”.

On November 20, 1983, American television aired a movie that realistically explored what would happen if there was a real exchange of nuclear weapons between the US and the Soviet Union. It had a profound effect in that rather than focusing on the war itself – though it did show the explosion of warheads on US soil and over cities – its purpose was to explore what happened to normal people left with virtually nothing.

I watched it from Toronto, Canada and was completely creeped out. I said several times to myself and those I was watching it with. The fact that Korean Air Lines flight 007 had been shot down by the Soviet Union, killing all 269 passengers and crew aboard on September 1, 1983 (including 62 Americans and others from 16 countries) – a mere eleven weeks earlier; only made it more real.

There was drama there, as there was drama in the initial years of the breast cancer diagnosis.

But we’re now in the long-term effects of the diagnosis, treatment, and recovery.

What has Hollywood done representing the long-term effects of nuclear war? It didn’t have to do anything. Documentary film makers visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan almost immediately after the bombing while others went sixty years later and interviewed survivors.

I haven’t seen these movies, but I DID see “The Day After”. I think that my life right now, as well as that of my wife, is in the exploration of the aftermath of the destruction of our lives. She is a survivor, assuredly. I am a survivor of a sort. Maybe I need to see if there are movies about people who lived on the island of Etajima, which was an island in Hiroshima Bay, south of the main city. What were their lives that day? What are their lives like now? Are there any survivors who lived there who have been interviewed?

Has their story ever been written?

Hmmm…I also just had an idea last night about a person who collects the six flags that astronauts left on the Moon. Could I meld this into something that would reflect my thoughts about living on that island and loving a survivor of the first atomic attack in Human history – and using it to explore my thoughts about being the husband of a breast cancer survivor? We’ll see.

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg