Winter Always Turns to Spring A Memoir: My Triumphant Journey Sachiko Takata Bailey

Sachiko Takata was 14 years-old when an atomic bomb dropped on her hometown of Hiroshima Japan. In an instant her world was changed. Her mother died shortly after Japans surrender. The devastation of war and the loss of her mother awakened in Sachikos heart a deep resolve to devote her life to building a world of peace where the dignity of all human beings is respected and the peril and haunting specter of nuclear war is nonexistent.. Given her experience with war it was ironic that she would marry an American soldier LeRoy Bailey. It was in the United States that she was introduced to Nichiren Buddhism and credits her practice of Buddhism as well as her mentor Daisaku Ikeda with saving and transforming her life. Through his example she was able to learn how to tap the innate power of her spirit to weather lifes storms; to change poison into medicine; to win over all obstacles and to turn winter into spring. . Because of her growth and understanding of life Sachiko Takata Bailey now thinks of August 6 1945 as Victory Day because the victorious and optimistic person she became emerged from the ashes and ruins of Hiroshima.