When I was a little girl one of the first books I read told a story of another little girl, Sadako who had been diagnosed with leukemia after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the story she started folding, shaping, and manipulating paper into the shape of paper cranes, because an old Japanese saying states that a thousand paper cranes will grant the maker a wish. For Sadako that wish was survival.
While the cranes have become a symbol of peace and for the abolition of nuclear weapons, I plan on folding one or two tonight as I think and pray for those in Japan in the aftermath of the 8.9 earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan.
Note: For those of you who might not know the story, Sadako was only able to finish folding over 600 cranes before she passed away. Her family and friends (amongst others) completed the task. Today, there is a memorial in her honor at the peace park in Hiroshima where you can often see hundreds of paper cranes that have been folded by others.
...this is what comes next 