“I shall write peace on your wings and you shall fly "

This week was the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I visited the place with my friend from there some 11 years ago. I saw the palm of a child embedded into stone. Silently we hung origami cranes on the shrines.

A Japanese legend teaches that anyone folding 1,000 paper cranes (a bird believed to live 1,000 years) is granted a wish.

In 1955 a 12-year-old Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki developed leukemia 10 years after the bombing of Hiroshima. She began folding 1,000 cranes so she could make a wish to get well. She also wrote the Haiku – “I shall write peace on your wings and you shall fly around the world.” ~ Sadako died October 25, 1955.

But, Sadako’s story did “fly around the world”. Her friends came together and raised funds to build a memorial to her and to all the children who died from the effects of the atomic bomb. In 1958, her statue was unveiled in the Hiroshima Peace Park with this plaque:

“This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace in the world.”

Cranes adorning the peace memorial Hirsohima Peace Park, Japan