The Children's Peace Monument is a statue dedicated to the memory of the children who died as a result of the bombing. The statue is of a girl with outstretched arms with a folded paper crane rising above her. The statue is based on the true story of Sadako Sasaki. Sadako was two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and seemed to have survived with no ill effects. By January 1955, purple spots had started to form on her legs. Subsequently, she was diagnosed with leukemia, which her mother referred to as "an atom bomb disease." She was hospitalized on February 21, 1955, and given, at the most, a year to live. During her time in the hospital her condition worsened. Around mid-October her left leg became swollen and turned purple. After her family urged her to eat something, Sadako requested tea on rice and remarked "It's good." Those were her last words. With her family around her, Sadako died on the morning of October 25, 1955 at the age of 12. She believed that if she folded 1,000 paper cranes she would be cured. She fell short of her goal, having folded only 644 before her death, and her friends completed the 1,000 and buried them with her. To this day, people (mostly children) from around the world fold cranes and send them to Hiroshima where they are placed near the statue. The statue has a continuously renewed collection of folded cranes nearby. When I was fourteen we lived next door to a Japanese family. Tokinari and Yoshimitsu were the two boys. Toki was about my age and we became friendly. One day he told me that his mother had survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. When the B-29 bombers were detected by Japanese radar those that could sought safety in one of the many concrete bomb shelters located throughout the city. When only three bombers were seen the "all clear" sirens sounded. Toki's mother was somewhere in the middle of the crowd of people leaving the shelter. Everyone in front of her died. Sometimes I wonder what became of her.