When reporters congratulated her at the main entrance to the school, Aiko, 15, responded, "I enjoyed the past three years because I was fortunate to have good teachers and friends."
The Imperial Household Agency also released a composition Aiko wrote for inclusion in the graduation anthology. She looked back on a school trip to Hiroshima in May 2016 and expressed her desire for the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons.
In the composition, Aiko wrote that when she stood before the iconic Atomic Bomb Dome she felt the suffering and chagrin of those who were affected by the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing.
She also wrote about feeling anger and sadness when she visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and learned about the vast number of people who died as a result of the bombing.
She also wrote about folding origami paper cranes with her friends and touched upon the two given to the museum by U.S. President Barack Obama when he visited in May 2016. She wrote that the large number of paper cranes on display was an expression of the same desire for peace held by those who left them.
"As Japanese born in the only nation to have the atomic bomb dropped on it, there is a need for us to widely transmit to the world what we have seen with our own eyes and felt," she wrote. "I pray that some day, in the not too distant future, a world without nuclear weapons will emerge and the 'Flame of Peace' in Hiroshima can be extinguished."
The Flame of Peace is a sculpture that has served as a symbol for nuclear abolition and is meant to stay alight "until the day when all such weapons shall have disappeared from the Earth," according to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park website.
I agree... am sooo happy that precious child has escaped being Empress and having to deal with the IHA which swallowed up her mother CP Masako and seems to have broken her grandmother's spirit.
