“A Mother’s Final Lullaby

August 5, 1945 – Hiroshima

The night was warm. The cicadas sang outside the paper windows, and the stars blinked down quietly over the rooftops. In a tiny wooden house near the edge of the city, Sachiko cradled her son in her arms.

Tomo was only four years old. He had soft black hair, always messy from his afternoon naps, and the kind of eyes that laughed even before his mouth did. Tonight, like every night, he refused to sleep without a song.

“Mama,” he whispered, “sing the song again.”

Sachiko smiled. Her voice was tired, her body sore from a long day working at the factory, but for him—always for him—she sang.

“Close your eyes, little crane,

Fly to the sky on dreams of rain.

Sleep in peace, no fear to find,

Mama’s love is close behind…”

His eyes fluttered shut.

She kissed his forehead.

And for a brief moment, the world outside didn’t matter. Not the war. Not the fear. Not the whispers of something terrible coming. Just this: a mother and her sleeping child.

August 6, 1945 – 8:15 AM

The morning came like any other. Sachiko was cooking rice. Tomo was still asleep in their futon. The sunlight poured in golden through the thin walls. She glanced at her son—his mouth slightly open, one small hand clinging to the corner of the blanket.

And then—light.

Blinding, white, endless.

It was as if the sun had fallen into their home.

The walls shattered. The roof vanished. A sound louder than anything she’d ever known tore through her world.

Sachiko’s ears rang. Her eyes burned. Her hands reached out instinctively—“Tomo!”—but her voice was lost in the wind of fire.

When the smoke cleared, there was no home. Just rubble. Charred wood. Cracked stone.

And there, buried in dust and ash, lay her child.

His tiny body, still curled.

Still sleeping.

But cold. So very cold.

She screamed until her voice was gone.

She dug through debris with her bare hands, pulling pieces of their life apart—books, shoes, broken pottery—until she reached him. She lifted him into her lap, cradling him again, like the night before.

His skin was burned. His lips were blackened. But his face—his sweet, soft face—still looked like Tomo.

Still her baby.

Still hers.

She didn’t cry. Not yet.

She did what she always did.

She sang.

“Close your eyes, little crane…

Fly to the sky on dreams of rain…”

He voice broke. Her hands trembled.

“Sleep in peace, no fear to find…

Mama’s love… is close behind…”

And then she held him. For hours. Until her arms could no longer bear the weight of loss.

Weeks passed.

The world outside tried to make sense of what happened. Numbers were counted. Reports were written. Cities mourned or celebrated. But Sachiko didn’t care for any of it.

Her world had ended at 8:15 AM.

They told her Tomo was one of tens of thousands.

But he wasn’t a number.

He was her son.

She refused to leave the ruins. She stayed where their home once stood, rebuilding a small altar with stones and candles. Every day, she brought water. Every night, she lit a flame.

People called her mad. A ghost of a woman.

But some… they began to leave paper cranes near the altar.

Children came and placed toys.

Mothers came and wept.

It wasn’t just her grief anymore.

Ten years later – 1955

A monument stands in Hiroshima today where Sachiko once lived.

The altar is gone, but the stories remain.

On a brass plaque, visitors read:

“In memory of the mothers who sang lullabies to children who never woke up.”

They don’t mention Sachiko by name.

But they don’t need to.

Every mother who visits the site and runs her fingers over the stone feels it—

The ache.

The silence.

The song that was never finished.

Today.

Somewhere, a woman hums the same lullaby to her child.

The war is over, but the echo of that voice—Sachiko’s voice—still lives.

Because love like that… never dies.

And lullabies, once sung, remain forever in the air.

Even if the child never wakes up.