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Dancing Lessons from God
The mythic epic, Gilgamesh, tells a similar story. Mason’s verse nar-
rative of the epic Gilgamesh begins with the following:
The story from the field became the story about a woman who lost
most of those she loved to death, the grandfather of her family, and
her own two young sons. Just like Gilgamesh, the woman was forced
to learn that she did not have the power to bring them back to life.
The woman’s conversion to Christianity grew out of her associations
with the nuns that looked after her during her lengthy recovery from
her own atomic wounds in the hospital. In a search for meaning amid
numerous deaths, that of loved ones, of a lifestyle, of a future, not to
mention the near death of hope, the woman responded to those who
were caring for her by converting to their faith.
The initial blast and its destruction was certainly extremely trau-
matic for the woman. The woman was severely injured, but she her-
self did not die. The woman’s father, who lived with the family, was
killed instantly. The woman’s two little boys were not killed instantly.
However, this perhaps only made the woman’s pain of losing them
even worse. One small boy died first, and as the child died before her
eyes, she was helpless to do anything about it. For the baby, though,
she believed there was a chance. The baby was alive but screamed in
agony. He wanted to suck, wanted the breast, wanted to drink. Among
those who initially survived the blast and died from radiation expo-
sure in the following days or weeks, there was also reported an acute
yearning for water to quench the sense of an incredible thirst. A trib-
ute to this is represented in the architecture and art of the Hiroshima
Peace Park, memorializing the blast, through the use of fountains or
structures that perpetually provide water.
The positioning of their home, and of the woman that morning when
the blast occurred, meant that physically she had been affected from
It is an old story
But one that can still be told
About a man who loved
And lost a friend to death
And learned he lacked the power
To bring him back to life. ( 1970 , 11 )
