The A-Bomb Dome and the Cherry Blossom
Good Friday
While in the navy stationed in Japan, I took the shinkansen from Yokohama to Hiroshima one weekend. It happened to be Good Friday. I had wanted to see Hiroshima since arriving in Japan for its unique place in our history, in our imagination, and in our psyche. The city represents what we human beings are capable of.
On the morning of August 6, 1945, the U.S. B-29 bomber “Enola Gay,” named after the pilot’s mother, dropped the first atomic bomb “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 80,000 instantly. Three days later, the U.S. dropped “Fat Boy” on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 instantly. Tens of thousands more people died later, and many more—the hibakusha, the survivors—lived with radiation sickness and other terrible wounds.
One person who died of such effects later was Sadako Sasaki. She was two years old the day of the bombing. Even though she had no apparent initial injuries, nine years later she suddenly developed signs of leukemia, which had been caused by radiation exposure from the bomb. With the hope that folding a thousand origami paper cranes would help her recover—a belief from Japanese legend—she made 644 of them in the eight months before she died.
Holy Saturday
I visited the Peace Memorial Museum on what was Holy Saturday. Victims’ belongings, survivors’ testimonies, and other a-bombed artifacts mesmerized me and other visitors from around the world for hours. I still recall, for instance, the analog watch eerily frozen at 8:16—the exact time its owner’s world and the world as a whole changed forever. That image of the watch still grips me, the way the pile of shoes at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum or the victims’ voicemails at the 9/11 Museum still do.
Outside, I walked along the Ota River and by the park’s fountains. In the evening, I sat on a bench and held an impromptu Easter vigil of sorts, facing what was left of the Industrial Promotion Hall, now known as the “A-Bomb Dome.” Although the hall was almost directly at the epicenter of the blast, its shell somehow survived complete destruction, and it now stands as a famous monument to that infamous day. The dome stood softly lit, while I sat quietly, and the city was still. If there are such things as ghosts, they were out that evening—perhaps every evening—in Hiroshima, that city of our collective consciousness.
Much dying, and death as a whole, is unavoidable—both the physical dying of the body and the spiritual dying of the ego. We would do better to welcome this death and dying, so Jesus and Christian teachers from Paul to Dorothy Day have taught us. We would do better to accept death in order to better welcome resurrection: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (Jn 12:24).
But, a particular death—early mass death, destruction, death before one’s time has come—is wholly avoidable. Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bombs have become more powerful and numerous. In the event of a nuclear war, scientists warn of a nuclear winter. With that type of potential death, where does resurrection even fit in? Is it possible? We thankfully have not had to find out, and yet we remain dangerously close to “doomsday.”
“The mere fact that we now seem to accept nuclear war as reasonable is a universal scandal,” Thomas Merton wrote in 1962. Thirty-six years later, in "The End of Imagination," Indian author Arundhati Roy lamented on the occasion of her country obtaining the bomb: “The nuclear bomb is the most anti-democratic, anti-national, anti-human, outright evil thing that man has ever made. If you are religious, then remember that this bomb is man's challenge to God. It's worded quite simply: ‘We have the power to destroy everything that You have created.’”
It is a long Holy Saturday evening—a long Easter vigil—that we wait in, here on the precipice. Is resurrection inevitable? Is it faith to wait and hope for best? Or must we “practice resurrection” as poet and farmer Wendell Berry beckons?
Easter Sunday
On Easter Sunday, I attended mass at the Assumption of Mary Cathedral, also known as the Memorial Cathedral of World Peace, a mile from the A-Bomb Dome. Pope John Paul II had visited the city and the church in 1981. There, he proclaimed, “All across the face of the earth, the names of very many—too many—places are remembered mainly because they have witnessed the horror and suffering produced by war, where nature has mercifully healed the earth’s scars, but without being able to blot out the past history of hate and enmity.”
After this worship, before getting back to my warship, I sat among the cherry blossoms, which were in full bloom. Nature had indeed mercifully healed many of the earth’s scars. The park was not quiet like the night before. Families bustled and laughed along the scenic thoroughfare. Life—one might say resurrection—was palpable.
I walked one more time to the Children’s Peace Monument, which was filled with thousands of paper cranes. Sadako Sasaki, the young girl who died of leukemia, had inspired her friends and schoolmates. They helped raise money to build a memorial to her and all of the children who died from the atomic bombing. A statue of Sasaki holding a golden crane stands in the park with the plaque that reads, “This is our cry. This is our prayer. For building peace in our world.” Approximately 10 million cranes are sent from around the world each year to the Children’s Peace Monument.
Hiroshima represents what we human beings are capable of: resurrection, practiced.
