Cranes and compassion
It speaks well of our community's compassion that many people, including California State University, Fresno and Fresno City College have been featured in The Bee honoring the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre with memorial services and other tributes. At State, there is a memorial garden next to the library. Two Virginia Tech alumni now teach at Fresno State and they were asked to read the 32 victims' names at the ceremony.
Today's young adults are often criticized for not being engaged in the public discourse. That is certainly not true when it comes to this issue. University President John Welty set a good example, telling his young students that this is a time when it is "very important that we reach out to each other." Fresno State is sending a banner to Virginia Tech, which I am sure the student body will greatly appreciate. It's so hard to know what to do to comfort people enduring such pain, and the truth is anything helps, any small gesture is going to be appreciated.
At Fresno City College, the students decided to send paper cranes and offers of service to Virginia Tech. Paper cranes are a symbol of peace and hope. There is a popular book called "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes." Here is the story from the Web site
The paper crane has become an international symbol of peace in recent years as a result of it's connection to the story of a young Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki born in 1943. Sadako was two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. As she grew up, Sadako was a strong, courageous and athletic girl. In 1955, at age 11, while practicing for a big race, she became dizzy and fell to the ground. Sadako was diagnosed with Leukemia, "the atom bomb" disease.
Sadako's best friend told her of an old Japanese legend which said that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes would be granted a wish. Sadako hoped that the gods would grant her a wish to get well so that she could run again. She started to work on the paper cranes and completed over 1000 before dying on October 25, 1955 at the age of twelve.The point is that she never gave up. She continued to make paper cranes until she died.
Inspired by her courage and strength, Sadako's friends and classmates put together a book of her letters and published it. They began to dream of building a monument to Sadako and all of the children killed by the atom bomb. Young people all over Japan helped collect money for the project.In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in Hiroshima Peace Park. The children also made a wish which is inscribed at the bottom of the statue and reads:
"This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world".
Today, people all over the world fold paper cranes and send them to Sadako's monument in Hiroshima.
There also is a statue of Sadako in Seattle.