Chapter Twenty-One

1.     Akira’s painting will become one of the iconic images of the Hiroshima bombing, frequently to be seen on display at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

2.     Eyewitness Testimonies: Appeals from the A-bomb Survivors, Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. Decades after the blast, at the age of forty-five, Akiko was diagnosed with a tumor on her spine, which was successfully removed. In 2012, at the age of eighty-six, she was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a blood anomaly that is often a precursor to leukemia. Both of these conditions are common in survivors of the atomic bomb. At the age of eighty-nine, Akiko currently carries out the duties of the head priest’s wife at the Hoonji Temple in the Asa Kita ward of Hiroshima.