Hiroshima in the Morning by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto

Author:Rahna Reiko Rizzuto
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Published: 2010-08-08T16:00:00+00:00

OCTOBER 3, 2001

CYCLE AND RETURN. The hand back, the pointing finger, to motherhood. My mother stars in every story. She saved my life. She pulled me out. She screamed for me to leave her before the firestorm surrounded the house. And when she dies and her child is too young to understand; when the infant can’t find the milk at his dead mother’s breast: that is heartbreak.

I cremated her—I was six—I dragged pieces of wood, wooden rail ties, off the bridge and piled them on top of her. I knew that was what she would have wanted. I set it on fire.

But mothers are also unarticulated. I’m not sure of her age then. She looked—well, like an ordinary Japanese woman. She wore her hair? . . . like an ordinary Japanese woman. I’m sorry I can’t tell you what she looked like. I think she was small. When you try to sift her pieces out, to pick her apart, bone by bone, she loses form and meaning. She is something felt, not there in the details. She does not exist except in the presence of her children.

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