What If - A Life Well-Lived

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:01:00,000
Every day Storm Yamaguchi gives thanks for what he calls his miracle. As a survivor of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the 93-year-old still can't decide whether he's the luckiest. Or run luckiest man in history. I have walked and crawled through the bottom of hell. I should be dead, but it was my fate to keep on living. I thought the sun had fallen from the sky. There was a tremendous sound and a flash of light above me. I was telling my company supervisor in Nagasaki that one bomb had destroyed all of Hiroshima. He told me I was crazy just as he said that the bomb fell on Nagasaki. ​ Paul Johnson: I'm your host, Paul Johnson, and this is get some one story every week. Stories that go where they want. We just follow. If you're here for stories that connect,

2
00:01:00,000 --> 00:02:00,000
you're in the right place. Today we begin a new series if only stories where history pivots on a moment where you can't help but wonder what if. In the Christian faith, perseverance is more than endurance. It is holding steady through suffering with patience, courage, and dignity. It is how faith takes root when the ground shakes. This series brings you lives shaped by that kind of perseverance. Not perfect lives, but human ones marked by hardship, resilience. and the mystery of what might have been. Okay, let's get into it. ​ Paul Johnson: When I was eight years old, I was in second grade. I adored my teacher. She was gentle and kind.

3
00:02:00,000 --> 00:03:00,000
The kind of teacher who made you feel safe in the classroom that year? The event that seared itself into my memory was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I remember that morning vividly. My father was listening intently to the radio before I left for school. He turned to me, his face solemn, and told me the president had been shot and killed. I didn't really understand the weight of it, not yet, but when I arrived at school, I saw my teacher weeping at her desk. That was when it struck me. The world outside had pierced its way into my small classroom, and even as a child, I knew something irreversible had happened. We don't always grasp

4
00:03:00,000 --> 00:04:00,000
tragedy in the moment. Sometimes as children, we take in only fragments, a father's voice, the teacher's tears. ~It is only later with age that we understand~ it is only later with age that we understand what we witnessed, and that is how it was for the central figure of our story. At eight years old, he too was marked by a loss. A loss he could not fully understand until much later in life. Let's go back to 1924, Nagasaki Japan. Japan in 1924 was a nation both proud and restless victory. In World War I had secured new territories and prestige, but it also fueled ambition.

5
00:04:00,000 --> 00:05:00,000
The Military Eyed Asia, hungrily Korea was already under Japanese rule and Manchuria loomed as the next prize. The drums of expansion beat louder each year. Families lived their daily lives between school rituals that honored the emperor. and newspapers that carried whispers of Japan's growing power abroad. The city of Nagasaki rested at the edge of the sea, a harbor cradled by mountains, ships came and went, cargo, steamers, fishing boats, even foreign vessels that reminded people of Nagasaki's. Long history. As Japan's window to the world, the great Kanto

6
00:05:00,000 --> 00:06:00,000
earthquake had shaken Tokyo the year before, and though Nagasaki had been spared, everyone knew Japan was a country on edge, torn between tradition and the modern world. But for an 8-year-old boy, the city was smaller. Measured in the slope of the lane he climbed to school the ringing bells at the neighborhood shrine, the comfort of his mother's voice, calling him home. The boy had a thin build with close, cropped black hair and round cheeks. His clothes were simple. A cotton kimono, the kind most children wore at school. He wore the same stiff gaku run as his classmates.

7
00:06:00,000 --> 00:07:00,000
A dark, almost black jacket with a high collar that pressed against his throat fastened with shiny brass buttons. Each button bore the emblem. Of the school. A reminder that he belonged not just to his family but to the larger order of Japan. His trousers matched the jacket straight and plain on his head. Sat the round student cap. Its small brim shading his eyes. Before the morning lessons began, students turned toward the framed imperial decree that hung at the front of every classroom to outsiders. It might have looked like just another document, but to the children of Japan, it was something more ~words written and endorsed.~ Words written and endorsed by

8
00:07:00,000 --> 00:08:00,000
the emperor himself, teaching loyalty to family, devotion to duty, and readiness to sacrifice for the nation The emperor, a distant but almost sacred figure, was not simply a ruler. He was believed to be a living descendant of the sun goddess. a symbol of divine authority to bow before his decree was to bow before the soul of the nation. Then came arithmetic, calligraphy history lessons recited with discipline. For this boy, school was duty, ~but the heart of his day came when it ended, when he could run back through the narrow streets toward home.~ But the heart of his day came when it ended, when he could run back through the narrow streets toward home from the street. His home was a low wooden structure. Sliding doors of paper and wood shoji,

9
00:08:00,000 --> 00:09:00,000
it glowed faintly when lanterns were lit. Inside the roof was tiled in gray, ceramic. Its curved edges catching the rain heavy enough to withstand the storms that swept in from the sea. A narrow entryway led to a small garden patch, neatly swept stones, bordered a few shrubs and a plum tree. its blossoms, softening the austerity of the house in spring. Inside the floors were covered with tatami mats, woven straw soft beneath bare feet, sliding doors. fusuma painted in muted patterns, divided one space from another ~in the main room. Low wooden tables stood ready for meals.~ In the main room, low wooden tables stood ready for meals, thin cushions, neatly placed on the floor against one wall. A small alcove

10
00:09:00,000 --> 00:10:00,000
displayed a seasonal scroll and a single flower in a vase. The kitchen was spare and practical, a hearth for cooking rice, a kettle hissing quietly over coals shelves lined with bowls and lacquered trays. The scent of miso, grilled fish and steaming rice was constant. At night, futons were unrolled onto the tatami by morning. folded it away again. The house shifted with the rhythm of the day. It was a home of small rituals, the sliding doors, the laying of futons, the sharing of meals. For this young boy, it was the place where his mother's voice lingered. where family felt close, where the outside world seemed far away. His mother was warmth.

11
00:10:00,000 --> 00:11:00,000
She'd knelt beside him as he worked his brush strokes steadying his hand when he grew frustrated. She made his favorite rice balls and slipped them into his pocket before school. She walked with him to the neighborhood shrine during festival days. Her hand closing gently around as the crowd pressed in. Together, they tossed coins into the offering box bowed deeply and clapped twice asking for health and protection. Religion was all around him. In one quarter of the house stood the butsudan the family's Buddhist altar. ~Each morning his mother lit incense before it bowing to the spirit tablets of incense.~ Each morning his mother lit incense before it bowing to the spirit tablets of ancestors. Sometimes her son joined her pressing his small hands together in imitation, not understanding all the

12
00:11:00,000 --> 00:12:00,000
words, but sensing the weight of the moment. ~To him, it was the small.~ To him, it was the smell of incense, the sound of whispered prayers, the comfort of being beside her. She was the one who woke him, her voice, gentle but firm, the one who placed a warm bowl of rice in front of him who taught him to bow properly to elders who corrected his posture when he bent over his books. In the evenings, she sat near the paper lantern, helping him with characters He couldn't quite memorize. Sometimes she hummed folk songs while she sewed. Her voice was soft and steady. To this boy, she was the anchor of the world. He had siblings, an older brother who teased him and a younger sister who followed him like a shadow. ~But in his memory it was always his mother at the center.~ But in his memory, it was always

13
00:12:00,000 --> 00:13:00,000
his mother at the center. And then came the day she was gone. The house was quiet that morning, quieter than he had ever known it. Neighbors filed in heads bowed, whispering words he could not catch the smell of incense clung to the air, heavy and strange. ~A black robed monk sat cross legged.~ A black roped monk sat cross-legged before the altar. His voice, deep and steady chanting words that seemed to go on forever. The boy stood with his father stiff in his little school uniform, small hands pressed together as he had been shown. He copied the movements of his Aunt placing incense into the bowl of ash. His eyes darted toward the simple wooden box that no one dared to speak about.

14
00:13:00,000 --> 00:14:00,000
He did not cry then. He did not really understand. The adults told him his mother had fallen ill, that her body had given out that she had gone to a better place still. He searched the room for her face, expecting her to step in. To tell him it was time to eat, or that his hands were dirty again from playing in the street. Instead, he felt his father's hand on his shoulder heavy firm, a wall of silence he could not climb. ~Later, he would remember flashes a clatter of sandals on the street as the procession move. The pale faces of relatives bowing.~ Later he would remember flashes the clatter of sandals on the street as the procession moved. The pale faces of relatives bowing the way neighbors averted their eyes. What he could not have known was the unspoken truth. His

15
00:14:00,000 --> 00:15:00,000
mother had not died of sickness. She had taken her own life. In Japan, suicide carried a deep contradiction. On one hand, an echo of Samurai, honor and duty on the other, a source of shame for ordinary families ~to speak it aloud.~ To speak it aloud. Invited stigma, shadows that could cling to a household for generations. So fathers and uncles spoke of illness, mothers and aunts whispered of sudden weakness, and children were told only what would preserve their innocence and the family's reputation. At eight years old, all this boy understood was absence. ~The one person would always bet down the one person. Who had always bent down to meet his,~ the one person who had always bent down to meet his gaze was gone. Yet even

16
00:15:00,000 --> 00:16:00,000
then, he began to carry on the first quiet test of resilience in a life that would demand endurance again and again. Next, we move to act two. ​ Paul Johnson: 1930 Nagasaki Japan. By the time he turned 14, the boys' world had grown more demanding. School was no longer just patriotic. Hymns and calligraphy arithmetic sharpened into geometry, history lessons tilted toward the glory of the empire. And military drills crept into the school yard. Every morning began with bows toward the portrait of the emperor, a ritual reminding him that he was not just a son of his family, but a subject

17
00:16:00,000 --> 00:17:00,000
of the nation. At 14, his body was lengthening awkwardly, still slight shoulders narrow, but his face was losing the softness of childhood. Cropped short in the schoolboy style, a black grun uniform hanging stiffly on his frame, he carried his school books under one arm. Ink stains, sometimes smudging his fingers. A hint of the boy already being shaped for a man's world. He was diligent, the kind of student who followed rules carefully. Partly out of respect, partly because he already knew after his mother's death that structure could protect him from chaos. At recess, he joined the other boys Dodge ball. Sumo matches in the dirt.

18
00:17:00,000 --> 00:18:00,000
Laughing when he slipped, brushing grit from his uniform before lining up again at the teacher's whistle. His father owned a small fabric shop. A narrow fronted store tucked between a rice merchant at a sake cellar, shelves once carried fine silks and bolts of cotton cloth. for kimonos in tailored suits. The father took pride in it holding fabric, just so running his hands along the weave, explaining which dyes would last through the seasons. But by 1930, the world was changing too fast. Factory spun cloth from Osaka and Nagoya was cheaper and more durable. Western style fabrics flooded Nagasaki's Port. Loyal customers now hesitated, counting coins, choosing

19
00:18:00,000 --> 00:19:00,000
practicality over tradition, ~and then like a wave from beyond Japan. Shores came that GR and then like a wave.~ And then like a wave beyond Japan's shores came. The Great Depression Banks in New York collapsed silk exports plummeted. Families stopped buying altogether for some small shops, like his father's survival slipped out of reach. The boy noticed his father bowing deeper than before. Shelves with empty gaps. The sharp smell of sake on his father's breath. The scrape of a sliding door at night as his father sat alone in the shop cup in hand. ~One evening the boy came home to find him sitting.~ One evening the boy came home to find him, sitting at the ledger columns of debt spilling across the page. Shoulders sagging for the first time. The boy saw, not the stern immovable man, but a man beaten down by forces he could not control.

20
00:19:00,000 --> 00:20:00,000
The fabric shop failed piece by piece. The last bolts of silk sold at a loss. Creditors came. The shutters stayed closed longer each morning, and the boy ~still only 12.~ Learned another lesson about endurance. ~When the shutters closed for good, the family slipped into poverty. Their new home was cramped and drafty.~ When the shutters closed for good, the family slipped into poverty. Their new home was cramped and drafty. Tatami Matts patched with scraps. The garden was bare dirt. Meals were thin. Rice stretched soup, watered down fish. Rare hunger, lingered like a dull ache in his belly, but he never spoke of it. Everyone was hungry. ~His father once called owner, now bowed behind~ his father once called, owner now bowed behind another man's counter. The bottle stayed close, but so did a new resolve. ~Where his own ambitions had failed, he fixed his gaze on his son's future. Every yen scraped together went to tuition, notebooks, and the crisp black gakuran uniform that gave his ball.~ Where his own ambitions had failed.

21
00:20:00,000 --> 00:21:00,000
He fixed his gaze on his son's future. Every yen scraped together went to tuition, notebooks, and the crisp black gakuran uniform that gave his boy dignity. In that season of want, the Boy learned two lessons, how fragile a livelihood could be, and how education might be the only way forward. And it was clear the boy had a gift, an instinct for how parts fit together. how lines could become structures. Teachers noticed with his father's push and Japan's hunger for technical minds, he was steered toward mechanical engineering and drafting. Bent over drafting tables under the glow of oil lamps, compass, and ruler in hand. He translated ideas into precise blueprints. That

22
00:21:00,000 --> 00:22:00,000
talent opened a door. Many in his neighborhood could only dream of a position with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries To work for Mitsubishi was to step into the heart of Nagasaki's Industrial might a company expanding, protected and tied to Japan's national ambitions. For a boy who had once walked home to a shuttered shop, it was proof that perseverance sharpened by hardship would indeed change the course of a life. ​ Paul Johnson: Hiroshima Japan. August 6, 1945. He was 29. A trained draftsman with steady hands at home in Nagasaki. He lived under one roof with his wife, their young son, and his

23
00:22:00,000 --> 00:23:00,000
aging father. Mitsubishi had given him financial security. His days were filled with blueprints, calculations, precise lines of ships and tankers feeding Japan's war machine. The empire had allied itself with Nazi Germany. It had declared war on the United States everywhere. The newspapers spoke of duty and sacrifice. He had been sent from Nagasaki to Hiroshima on company business. Papers folded, designs rolled in a tube. One small cog in the machinery of war. But by the summer of 1945, Japan was unraveling. Okinawa had fallen. B29s nines roared overhead, almost daily. ~Whispers spread. Defeat was inevitable, even if no one dared. Speak of surrender.~ Whispers spread defeat was inevitable. Even if no one dared speak of surrender

24
00:23:00,000 --> 00:24:00,000
ration lines stretched longer. Rice grew thinner. Air raid drills became routine. At Mitsubishi foremen demanded longer hours, quicker output, pushing men like him to draw faster, to keep the shipyards alive just a little longer from the train window. He saw paddies glint in the sun, but even the calm countryside carried the weight of war. By early August, his three month assignment in Hiroshima was ending. ~He had packed his bags ready for,~ he had packed his bags ready to return home to his wife, his son, and his father in Nagasaki. There was relief in that thought, but also unease. Rumors were everywhere. Some said surrender was near, others swore the army would fight to the last man. Nothing felt certain

25
00:24:00,000 --> 00:25:00,000
except the hunger, the whine of American bombers overhead and the sense that the war was closing in. On the morning of August 6, he walked toward Mitsubishi's Hiroshima office. His task was simple. Report the completion of his work, arrange his return trip. ~He carried a small bundle of belonging. He~ carried a small bundle of belongings and a tube of documents and drawings. Blueprints of ships that in all likelihood would never be built at 8:15 AM an American B 29 bomber. Flying high over Hiroshima dropped an atomic bomb. It exploded three kilometers from where he was walking. A blinding flash that turned the morning sky into fire. The blast hurled him to the ground. His clothes were stripped away. The left side of his body

26
00:25:00,000 --> 00:26:00,000
seared his eyes burned white with sudden blindness. When he staggered up. The city around him was fire and ash, half blind scorched. He stumbled into an air raid shelter, then to the Mitsubishi Shipyard office there. Against the odds he found two colleagues. They were injured but alive that night. The three stayed in the ruins, tending their burns with scraps of cloth, sipping water when they could find it. While Hiroshima smoldered around them on August seven, bandaged and burned. He forced himself through the ruins to the train station. Incredibly, the rail line was still running. He boarded for the long journey home, 15 hours through bomb scarred towns, broken

27
00:26:00,000 --> 00:27:00,000
bridges and countryside that in places looked untouched. By the evening of August eight, he staggered through the door of his Nagasaki home. His wife, his young son, his father exhausted, wrapped in bandages. He told them what he had seen a single bomb that had turned a city into flame. The next morning, August nine, still determined to report for duty. He went to Mitsubishi's Nagasaki office. ~Just before noon, as he was describing Hiroshima, just before noon, as he was describing Hiroshima to his supervisor, another blinding flash, another sky of fire, the second atomic the second.~ ~Just before noon as he was describing Hiroshima,~ just before noon. As he was describing Hiroshima to his supervisor, another blinding flash, another sky of fire. The second atomic bomb had exploded over Nagasaki. Once again, he was thrown into darkness and once again, against all odds, he survived

28
00:27:00,000 --> 00:28:00,000
this boy whose childhood was marked by the loss of his mother. This teenager who watched his family's shop collapse, who endured hunger while his father drowned his pain in drink this young man who walked into Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and three days later into Nagasaki. All of these lives were one life. His name was Tsutomu Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi's story is not only the story of atomic fire, it is the story of human perseverance. As a child, he endured loss as an adolescent. He survived poverty and clung to education As an adult, he survived what no one else survived. Two atomic bombings. He carried

29
00:28:00,000 --> 00:29:00,000
scars, but he carried forward the choice to live. To work to raise a family his life reminds us. Perseverance is not one single act of strength. It is the accumulation of small decisions not to give in even when the world collapses around you. That is the legacy of Tsutomu Yamaguchi. ​ Paul Johnson: That's it for our story. This episode belongs in a series we've called If Only, if Only his mother had lived, if only his father's business had survived, if only his country had chosen peace, if only the bombs had never fallen. Tsutomu Yamaguchi's life was marked by unanswered. If onlys yet, his story is not one of despair. ~Instead, it is one of perseverance of finding the strength to endure of.~

30
00:29:00,000 --> 00:30:00,000
Instead, it is one of perseverance of finding the strength to endure what should have been unendurable. In the Christian faith, perseverance is not merely survival. It is grace lived out over time. St. Paul wrote Suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character, and character produces hope. ~Yamaguchi's life embodied that~ Yamaguchi's life embodied that truth. From boyhood loss to family hardship to surviving two atomic bombs, he chose hope over despair, life over surrender. Near the end of his long life, at the age of 90, he put pen to paper and published his memoir, A Life Well Lived In it. He offered his testimony. So the world might learn not only of

31
00:30:00,000 --> 00:31:00,000
survival, but of the dignity and perseverance that carried him across nine decades. And so his story leaves us with a challenge. Even when the, if onlys remain, we too can persevere. We too can carry suffering with dignity, and we too can choose hope. Thanks for spending time with us. We'd love to hear from you. Share your own stories of perseverance in the comments because the way we endure and carry on is a story worth telling. And if you've got a story you think we should tell, reach out and share a few details. It just might end up in a future episode. Next week we continue our series if only stories where history pivots on a moment where you can't help but wonder what if

32
00:31:00,000 --> 00:32:00,000
our next story takes us to 1980, to the slopes of a restless volcano in Washington state ~when the mountain erupted, entire landscapes were erased.~ When the mountain erupted, entire landscapes were erased in an instant, but among those who stayed behind was one man who refused to leave his home and was buried in the blast. His choice left behind a haunting question. What if Get Some is written, produced, and hosted by me? Paul Johnson? Find photos, show notes, and past episodes at getsomepodcast.com or on our YouTube channel. ~If you're enjoying this series, leave a review or share it with a friend. It helps others find these stories.~ ~If you're enjoying this series, leave a review or share it with a friend. It'd help.~ If you're enjoying this series, leave a review or share it with a friend. It helps others find these stories. Thanks for listening, and remember, today is the best day of your life. Now go get some. I. ​

33
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:05,000