and her friends began furiously
folding paper into cranes, using
any material they could find—waxy
medicine casings, scraps of gift
wrap. Almost a century before
Sadako’s birth, the poet Emily
Dickinson had written, “Hope
is the thing with feathers.” In
Sadako’s final months, it was the
thing with wings.
Komaki and her classmates
vowed their friend’s death would
not be forgotten, and eventually
raised more than $10,000 to
construct a monument and statue
of Sadako in what is now Peace
Memorial Park. Today, origami
cranes sent from children around
the world often drape the park in
colorful garlands as international
symbols of peace.
Determined to cure cancer,
Komaki entered Hiroshima
University School of Medicine.
She began volunteering at a U.S.
government clinic constructed
to care for people with radiation
exposure. Later, during her
residency, she would happen
upon something profound: a
man diagnosed with Hodgkin
lymphoma who had been cured
with radiation. All her life, she had
seen radiation take lives; here was
someone it had saved.
Just after medical school,
she married Senichiro Komaki,
a radiologist she had met at the
start of her internship. The couple
moved to Milwaukee after he was
offered a residency at the Medical
College of Wisconsin. Four years
later, he was called back to Japan.
But she resolved to stay—she
had just begun her residency in
radiation oncology—so the two
divorced. By the time she finished
her training, she was too in love to
return home.
The man she fell in love with
was physician Jim Cox, who had
been her department chairman
during her residency. Like Komaki,
he, too, had been drawn to
radiation oncology out of respect
and awe for the energy of atoms.
“Before I ever met her, I had
CR | Page No. 21 | www.CRmagazine.org
