I was writing in my daily journal the other morning. I woke up thinking about my mother which I do quite often these days. I was thinking about a book she told me I needed to read when I was a sophomore in high school. I’m can’t remember why my mother recommended the book. We may have been discussing World War II and at the time it didn’t occur to me that the book might lead to my mother’s confession about our family shadow story.
I look back now and think that my mother may have wanted to tell me about Terry Higa but was unable to at the time. Maybe it was just a secret she wasn’t ready to discuss. After all, when she did tell me about Terry, she kept saying she wanted to make sure Terry went on to have a good life. Terry and my mother kept their stories from their families, but for very different reasons.
The book my mother told me I should read was “Hiroshima,” by John Hersey. I went to the school library and checked out an old beat up paperback that looked like it hadn’t seen the light of day in years. I read it over a weekend and when I finished the book I told my mother how horrified I was by the accounts of the people who survived of the A-bomb. She told me it was important for me to understand that the U.S. committed horrific crimes against humanity by dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and that it was something never to be forgotten or repeated.
While I was writing about this, I got a text from Dr. Michelle Hall Kells. She sent me a link to an article she came across and said she thought of me. What a strange coincidence. The article is about the story of Sadako Sasaki, a little girl who developed leukemia after being exposed to atomic radiation, and about the paper cranes she folded believing she might recover. The story of Hiroshima’s paper cranes is a story of love and hope.
If you don’t know about Sadako Sasaki and Hiroshima’s paper cranes, it’s worth reading. I've provided the link below which I got from the, "Japan Times."
