Hiroshima, Japan

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It was a happy accident that our family spent Easter Sunday in Hiroshima wandering among the cherry blossoms and visiting the Peace Park. We had planned to visit this historic city, but did not realize we would reach it on Easter. There was a poetry in this, that we spent the Christian day of rebirth, visiting war memorials in a Buddhist city reborn after a nuclear bomb.

"Nothing will grow in Hiroshima for 75 years," they said after the Enola Gay decimated the city, but it was rebuilt and growing trees within twenty years. On this day, extended families picnicked under the cherry trees lining the Motoyasu-gawa River while a cherry-pink bateau-mouche toured up and down the river. Barbeques overflowed with noodle dishes and children played baseball in the park; a waterfront music festival provided the soundtrack to our day. We walked for several miles, alternately joining the stream of humanity on parade and sitting on benches to eat our paper bag repasts. Our meal paled in comparison to the ubiquitous, elegant, boxed lunches, with a compartment for each dish, preferred by locals.

Across the river, the A-Bomb Dome or Gembaku Domu stands on the site of a former government building. The atomic bomb exploded almost directly above it on August 6, 1945; all of the workers died instantly, but many of its walls remained intact. The ruins, crowned by a skeletal dome, provide a moving reminder of the tragedy.

At ground level at the Peace Memorial Hall, is an abstract clock statue permanently set at 8:15, the time of detonation; rubble from 1945 surrounds the clock. We descended the spiraling ramp into the meditative Memorial, our voices catching in our throats as we read the informational plaques describing Japan on a path of war as well as the atrocity of the bombing.

We entered the softly lit Hall of Remembrance, a round room with a pleasant water feature in the center. Sitting in silence on a small bench, we gazed at the photographs on the walls, 360 degrees of neighborhoods decimated by the bomb. It is a grizzly panoramic view from the hypocenter. The photographs are made from 140,000 square tiles, one for each person who died between August and December, 1945 as a result of the atomic bomb.

All of the victims' names are engraved on the arch that frames the eternal flame. Japan will extinguish the fire only when the last nuclear weapon has been dismantled. An atomic weapon is indiscriminate, killing regardless of age or nationality. Among the victims were Japanese civilians, Korean slave laborers and American prisoners of war. At the Peace Memorial Hall, one can see portraits of all the victims by inserting the guide pamphlet into a touch screen computer kiosk. Our eight-year-old scanned photographs for a long time, finding a human connection that was lacking for her in the concrete and flames.

Familiar with the book, Sadako and the 1,000 Cranes, our twelve-year-old made a poignant connection, to this atrocity, at the Children's Peace Memorial. Sadako developed leukemia at the age of ten from the radiation exposure. According to Japanese custom, if a person folds 1,000 cranes, her wish will come true. Sadako did not complete the 1,000 cranes before her death, but her story inspired this monument and continues to inspire origami crane folding across the world. Display cases exhibit donated cranes, folded in vivid colors and strung up like leis by the 1,000's.

While admiring the Sadako monument, in a particularly contemplative mood, an elderly Japanese woman approached me with a handwritten card, saying in multiple languages,
"Do you mind if I pray for your happiness?"
"Please, by all means." How could I refuse such a generous offer?
So we inclined our heads, closed our eyes and stood quietly for many moments.
Thanking her with a bow and a poorly accented "Arigato," she asked one more question, "American?" She smiled broadly at my positive response and walked away.

The people of Hiroshima are serious about spreading peace and in our short visit, they appeared to live the mission of the Peace Memorial: "Mourning the lives lost in the atomic bombing, we pledge to convey the truth of this tragedy throughout Japan and the world, pass it on to the future, learn the lessons of history, and build a peaceful world free from nuclear weapons."

Their goals have recently come into conflict with elected officials who want Japan to become a nuclear power. The youngest survivor or hibakusha is now 62, in utero when the bomb exploded. With fewer hibakusha to tell the story and political realities changing this peaceful nation, the nuclear atrocity of Hiroshima is in danger of fading into the dusty recesses of history....lest we forget.

As we returned to our hotel that evening fatigued by celebration and somber reflection, our daughter asked, "Mom, why isn't war illegal?" It's a very good question.