This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world
Sadako Sasaki was just twelve years old when she was diagnosed with leukemia caused by radiation exposure due to the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. While she was in the hospital, her friend brought her a square of golden paper to be folded into a paper crane. A Japanese legend tells that folding 1,000 cranes will bring a miracle by the gods. For three months Sadako folded 644 paper cranes before she died. Her friends completed the 356 cranes, and all 1,000 were buried with her. Sadako’s story is a poignant example of the long-reaching effects of a national disaster. A monument in her memory was erected at the Hiroshima peace memorial. My reflective activity is a Photoshopped image—one half of the image displays a black-and-white photo of Hiroshima shortly after its destruction, a stark contrast with the other half, which presents the present-day, newly reconstructed Hiroshima in vibrant colors. In the sky I placed 1,000 paper cranes to symbolize the healing impact of the legend and the real-life young girl who became a symbol of peace .
This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world. Photoshop. Brimhall, 2012
In response to Andrew’s reflections, student T. V. wrote:
When A.B. shared his “Cranes over Hiroshima” reflection, silence spread over the class. I had seen his beautiful rendering of the Hiroshima disaster online, but it didn’t come alive for me until he spoke of it. His art and the emotion with which he shared it helped transform statistics and abstract history into personal tragedy and hope. For me, and I think for many others, the history of Hiroshima was a sterile collection of facts and numbers: 1945, one bomb, 100,000 dead, another bomb, war over. A.’s art and his moving discussion of it in class made the disaster personal and human for me. I recall his artwork well—the destroyed view of Hiroshima, the view of the new city built from those ruins, and the cranes over everything. I remember the cranes—a perfect tragic-hopeful symbol. I imagined the little girl folding cranes for a better future, her death before reaching her goal, and the way that others completed the task for her. More than anything else, I take this message from A.B.’s reflection: our pain and our hope live longer than we do; Trauma outlives individual and generations to become codified into national and cultural histories—but our messages and purposes can also outlive us.
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