Shu Takeyama and the Atomic Bomb

October 5, 2008

Shu Takeyama died on October 11, 2002 from internal injuries caused by an accident on his beloved Ducati motorcycle.  He was one of my closest friends.  He was my brother.

Perhaps our friendship was somehow fated or ordained.  As a child, Japan was always near my heart.  I was fascinated by every aspect of Japanese life and culture. And somehow it became a part of my story – A story that started with an earlier generation.  As newlyweds, my parents moved to Japan in October of 1972, where my father worked as a Russian linguist in the United States Navy at Atsugi Naval Air Station until the Fall of 1974.  As an unborn child I spent my life from conception until about 8 months of age on the Japanese mainland and have often joked that I was “Made in Japan.”

I always looked up to Shu and over the years I tried to imitate him in so many ways.  He was great triathlete, a gifted mathematician and a compassionate friend.  During high school his house was my other home.  His parents were always welcoming and his mother continually lavished the finest Japanese cuisine upon an unsuspecting Okie.  I would often ask what I was eating and his father would laugh gently and explain that there was no translation in English.  Later through college and in the years that followed Shu would spend Christmas Eve with my family because he was our family.

Shu and I traveled a lot together in those early days, competing in triathlons and spending many late nights discussing the issues nearest to our hearts.  For years I desperately sought to convince him that my God was worthy of worship.  He continually rebuffed my best apologetics, adamantly demanding to know how my God could condone the use of the atomic bomb on his homeland.  In retrospect, all I offered were empty platitudes and a final retort that it was his country that was the initial aggressor.  Though Shu moved to the United States in middle school and had a genuine love for this country, he never saw himself forgiving America for the two final acts of World War II.  For him the evil of the atomic bomb was inextricably linked to the Christian religion.

And then something happened…

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Almost six years after his untimely death, while driving into my garage from an afternoon rain shower with my wife and daughter, I felt the full force and horror of the bombs dropped on Hiroshemia and Nagaski .   This feeling seemingly came from nowhere and began as an acute pain from deep within.  Unspeakable images of suffering children rushed through my mind and within the hour I found myself weeping uncontrollably as the weight of this evil cried out from the deepest recesses of my heart.

Quickly I realized that another horror was welling up within – regret.   Almost immediately I moved from regret to desperation.  I pleaded with God to go back in time to tell my friend that I now understood his pain.  I wanted to ask his forgiveness.  I wanted him to know that my God felt his pain and the pain of his people.  I wanted him to know that I had misrepresented Jesus of Nazareth.  The god I had told him about was somehow incomplete.  It was many years before I came to realize that the god I was worshipping was a theologically incomplete and needy god.  I had lived under the assumption that this incomplete god somehow needed my help and the help of a Christian America.  The god of my youth had got himself into quite a mess – all because he erred in loving and creating the human race.  This isn’t my God and it isn’t the real Jesus.

I think Shu would have liked the real Jesus.

Several weeks before Shu’s death we got to spend two of the most memorable days of my life reliving old times and looking forward to what we thought were years of memories to come.  We ate, we laughed, we spent hours at Starbucks and most importantly we got to run together once again – this time along the beautiful California coastline.

Shu Takeyama taught me how to be a friend.  He taught me to love well.  And somehow in his death he has taught me how to live.

I miss you my friend.