Last kimono

"Sadako and 1000 paper cranes"

From Wikipedia:

Sadako Sasaki (Japanese:佐々木 禎子 Sasaki Sadako, January 7, 1943 – October 25, 1955) was a Japanese girl who lived near Misasa Bridge in Hiroshima, Japan. She was only two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. At the moment of explosion she was at her home, about 1 mile from ground zero.

In November of 1954 she developed a cold, and lumps developed on her neck and behind her ears that slowly moved towards her face. In January of 1955 purple spots started to form on her legs. She went to a hospital for testing and on February 18, 1955 she was diagnosed with leukemia. The doctor ordered immediate hospitalization, and stated that she would have, at the most, a year to live. She was admitted to the hospital on February 21, 1955.

On August 3, 1955, Sadako saw a gift of one thousand origami paper cranes that were donated to the hospital from the people of Nagoya as a "Get Well" gift. She was inspired by the cranes, and became one of the many patients who began to fold the origami cranes, spurred on by the Japanese saying that one who folded a thousand cranes was granted a wish. At the time of her death, she had folded a total of 1,300 cranes. A popular version of the story is that she fell short of her goal of folding 1,000 cranes, having folded only 644 before her death, and that her friends completed the 1,000 and buried them all with her .

Though she had plenty of free time during her days in the hospital to fold these cranes, she lacked paper. She would use medicine wrappings and whatever else she could scrounge up. This included going to other patient's rooms to ask to use the paper from their get well presents.

Though her family was distressed with the fervor she put into folding the cranes, she always told them that she 'had a plan'.

During this time her condition turned for the worse, her white blood cells peaking for the third time during her hospitalization. Her left leg turned purple and swelled far larger than normal around mid-October. The last thing she said was "It's good," speaking about the tea on rice that she had requested after her family was urging her to eat something. She was only able to eat two spoonfuls. With her family around her, she passed away on the morning of October 25, 1955 as if she were just going to sleep.

Source of information - [link] - English
[link] - Русский
[link] - Deutsch
[link] - Français