“Daddy, why did the bomb break the city?”
The museum opened with a room-sized panorama of Hiroshima in 1942, followed by another taken from the same vantage point three years later.
Before and after in stark comparison.
My kid noticed it at once.
“It’s all broken.”
~
Moving on, the museum didn’t get easier.
A model of Hiroshima sat in the middle of the second room. A projector hung overhead, bringing it to life.
First, it showed a living city, cars, water, life, and greenery.
A plane shadow passed overhead.
A bomb.
Everything erupted in flames.
After they subsided, twisted metal and ashes remained.
It felt immediate.
The devastation so clear.
And here, my kid asked the obvious question, the one to which I had no answer.
“Daddy, why did the bomb break the city?”
The rest of the museum then passed in murmured quiet, interrupted by stifled sobs.
Each room held another kind of suffering.
Pain, upon pain, upon pain.
“Why, Daddy. Why?”
“Why?”
I fumbled for words as tears began to streak my face.
Then I squeezed his hand, and we kept walking.
~
The end of the museum came as relief.
Daylight pouring through open windows, brightening the black museum walls into shades of gray.
Looking out, I saw the manicured fields of the memorial park, with an eternal peace flame burning at the center.
I’d thought the museum was over.
I didn’t realize then how this view was actually the final display.