Oridzuru_815
Legacy Name: Oridzuru_815

Pinto

Oridzuru: Japanese - folded paper crane

She was sitting up in the hospital bed, the head tilted forward and her back leaning against it. She had her legs under the sheets; it was a cool night.
"If I could take this from you, I would, in a heartbeat. We love you so much," he was telling her.
She was nodding. She kind of always knew, didn't she?
"Cancer," the doctor had said that night.
Her dad was still talking. Her mom was crying.
She was twelve.

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Japanese legend has it that the folder of 1,000 cranes is granted a wish. We've made 999 cranes, but the last one is for you; it's YOUR wish!

Oridzuru looks up happily at the inscription hanging on the wall, written in the hand of my best friend on a large piece of leftover wrapping paper.

"Can you believe it, Oridzuru?" I ask my pet bird as I also stare at the framed piece of paper. "My friends made me 1,000 paper cranes. One thousand! 10 times 100. That's a lot. And then they hung them all in my room without me knowing!"

Oridzuru lets out a whoop in response and flapps his snowy white wings, a few black feathers coming out from the tips.

We both take our eyes away from the frame on the wall to look at the dancing colors hanging from the ceiling above us. I stand only a few inches higher than Oridzuru, so we are both able to walk around the room without having to duck under the hanging paper cranes. They hang from fishing line strung across the ceiling from side to side and corner to corner. The clear thread crisscrosses the entire room. From this structure, hundreds more pieces of fishing line hang down, and each piece holds five origami cranes. Some are solid colors; others are made from patterned papers; still others are made from whatever scrap pieces of paper were available at the time, including park maps and candy wrappers. They range from the size of my hand to the size of my fingernail, and each is held in place by a shiny plastic bead. The colors and the motion are mesmerizing.

"This is how you were named, Oridzuru," I explain. "Your name represents the love that others have given me, and that I have to give to others. My friends planned this for months; they got the entire high school involved in making origami birds while I was sick in the hospital. They planned this weeks in advance with my family and organized to keep me out of the house while they came and set this all up. They spent an entire Saturday morning and afternoon at the school, stringing these cranes and figuring out a way to transport them here. They gave up that Saturday night to hang them all. And then they stood by as I walked into the room, absolutely astounded by the sight of all these delicate creatures hanging in my room. They patiently showed me how to make my own origami crane, the 1,000th one, and lifted me up so that I could add it to the rest. They were there for me the entire time.

"If that isn't love, I don't know what is. That's my wish, Oridzuru, for you and for the whole world. Pure and simple love."

I hear another whoop.

The Hanging Thousand Cranes

How to Make a Paper Crane

Information about Oridzuru
Likes: Aldo Leopold and his Sand County Almanac (particularly "Marshland Elegy" and the section dealing with cranes), crafting, rice paper, good luck, swamps, insects (yum), mythology, conservationists.
Dislikes: Poachers, dry land, glue (it gets stuck in feathers! only amateurs use it anyway), pessimism, war.
Height: 140 cm (55 in)
Weight: 8.2 kg (18 lb)
Species: Grus japonensis
Status: Endangered

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