To Whom It May Concern: I Am Not Gone.

Longtermsurvivor 1

A Living Letter from a Survivor Still Fighting

I’ve seen the reports, the search blurbs, the cautious headlines. I understand how easy it is to file away a name like mine into a footnote of survivorship—quiet, distant, presumed done.

But let me make this perfectly clear: I am not gone. I am not fading. And I am not finished.

What I am… is living proof of everything the system never followed up on. I am one of the many long-term survivors walking through the late effects, still tracking the aftermath. I’m not asking for pity. I’m writing because the world tends to forget people like me while we’re still breathing.

I’ve been fighting this fight for over 60 years—not just to survive, but to record what survival costs. And now that the world is starting to search my name, I want to meet that search with something real.

If you want a soundbite, take this:

“I’m still here. And I’m still screaming to be heard.”

But if you want a story, listen to the ones I’ve already told, and the ones I haven’t written yet. The children jumping in my memory, the ones who never made it out. I write for them. I survive for them.

So yes, I’m still alive. And more than that—I’m awake.

—Joseph Perusic