Several years ago, I read about a Japanese Soldier who hid in a cave in Guam for 28 years.[i] Local farmers came across the emaciated, frightened man, who was dressed in rags. It turns out that the Japanese attacked and captured the 200-square-mile island in the western Pacific during WWII in 1941. In 1944, U.S. forces reclaimed Guam and at that time, Yokoi, who was left behind by the retreating Japanese forces, went into hiding. Thinking the war was still raging, he stayed hidden and for the next three decades, waited for the return of the Japanese. After his discovery in 1972, he was returned home to Japan, where he was celebrated as a hero.
Well, after reading it, it took me a while to formulate the implications of such a thing. My initial reaction was to say, “come out of that cave,” and that is still my thought on the matter today. What is the point is simply staying alive when you are in such fear that you allow yourself to shrivel away to a bag of bones?
Something that I have noticed after the isolation of the pandemic for some of us is that there is a reluctance to come back out into the world, a tendency to stay hidden. For introverts, that might be natural, but I have found that coming back out and smiling at people and just being alive in the sunshine with other people is invigorating and life enhancing. Solitude is a good thing, but continued isolation isn’t. Like Yokoi, we might begin to imagine enemies where none exist.
Franklin Roosevelt said, “there is nothing to fear but fear itself.”[ii] So many times in our lives, this is true. I hope that each of us will come out of whatever cave we have gone into, whether the cave of despair, worry, fear, or other. Come out of the cave and enjoy life. We are not meant to spend our lives in caves. Come out again and enjoy living. I know I intend to do just that! With Love, JudyV
[i] https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/japanese-soldier-found-hiding-on-guam
[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_inauguration_of_Franklin_D._Roosevelt#Inaugural_address