This morning, we visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. In the museum, they have a model of the devastation done to Hiroshima after the atom bomb was dropped, and they even marked the spot where this actual museum stands today. Many personal items from affected families were generously donated to the museum, so we saw and read about a lot of the personal stories of people who were here on that very hot day in August 1945.

One picture on display was of a woman wearing a kimono with a very intricate design at the time of the bomb dropping. The delicate pattern of the fabric got burned into her skin, leaving what looks like a tattoo of her kimono all over her back and arms. One of the many objects was a child’s single Japanese-style shoe. A mother went searching for her missing child after the bomb was dropped and found nothing – except a single sandal which she knew was her own child’s because the thong portion was hand-woven from a piece of her own old custom-made and designed kimono. No one else in the world had shoes like this – except for her child.

It’s always the personal stories that get me when it comes to events like this. I’m not trying to be callous when I say this, but when we learn that 350,000 people either died or suffered after effects from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, these are just numbers to me – statistics like any other statistic about any other counted fact. What is the most moving as a human being are the personal stories of affected individuals, how these devastating events affected real people in real families in real neighborhoods. It’s what makes these events real to the people who were unaffected directly by it and able to at least slightly empathize with their experiences.