Fear of Radiation: A Personal Plea for Japan

Blown Away

When I was ten years old, my home was blown away by a tornado. I’m telling you this, not is a bid for sympathy, but to make a point.

I have noticed over the years that many people who have experienced a trauma like that seem morbidly fearful that it’s going to happen again. Any sign of bad weather and they become terrified.

My mother, whose back was broken in “our” tornado, was one of those people. Storms terrified her. It was as though she thought she had cheated death by surviving the tornado and that death was determined to even the score using that same method. I think that Mom was a little surprised when she died of cancer thirty-some years later.

I have had a different reaction. Well, actually, I have had two different reactions.

First, whenever the weather becomes stormy, I immediately have to go to the bathroom because that’s what occupied my ten-year-old mind after I crawled between my father’s legs into the storm cellar. I was scared silly, I had to pee. Badly. But I’d still been above ground when our house exploded, so I knew good and well that going to the “bathroom” was out of the question. Except that – nature solved that problem in her own way. So whenever it storms, I make sure to go to the bathroom to spare myself the embarrassment of nature’s solution.

My second reaction when it gets stormy and the tornado sirens start to blare is to go out, look up at the sky to see if there are any tell-tale twister tails and think, “Well, isn’t that interesting.” I don’t get scared. I don’t think that tornado is out to get me. It is more like I bare my breast to “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

My fatalistic philosophy is that if it’s gonna get you, it’s gonna get you whether you’re cowering in fear with your head covered or standing there spitting in its eye. I prefer to spit.

Man-made Disaster

I’ve been thinking of these things as I listen to the news coming out of Japan. Those poor people have been rocked by an earthquake, drenched and battered by a tsunami, and now they face an even more fearsome scourge – nuclear radiation.

And those poor people, more than most of us, know what they fear. They have in their cultural memory the firestorms of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I can only imagine how they feel as they look to the immediate future, as they listen to government reports and warnings. Some of them undoubtedly cower in fear. And who can blame them? Some of them may have a fatalistic approach similar to my own. Who can blame them?

After our tornado, my family was destitute. My mother was in one hospital with a broken back, my father was in another hospital with heart problems. We kids were farmed out to friends and neighbors. It was those friends and neighbors – and many complete strangers – who helped us put our lives back together again. Food, clothing, furniture, money, place to live and, most especially, a hope that there would be a future came pouring in.

Give Generously
I received a check for $150.00 yesterday; the first fruits of six months of long hours and hard work getting my business started. Ten percent of that will go to Japan, through the Red Cross or the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR). I wish I could send more but the tax man cometh – and the electric company, my internet provider, my landlord, etc., etc., etc. All of them want a piece of that $150.00 and more.

I’m not telling you all this to incite your sympathy – unless it be for our friends and neighbors in Japan. I hope that you will give generously to reputable charities and relief agencies. I hope that you will join me in praying for the people of Japan. Pray that they might have the hope that there will be a future.