Throughout our lives we go through very good moments and others that we wish we didn’t have, to the point that they can make us so discouraged that we lose the desire to continue walking our path. However, there is a 392-year-old pine bonsai that survived one of the most terrible events in Japan: when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima , thus devastating the city.
It happened on August 6, 1945. At that time, this tree lived together with the Yamaki family, its legitimate owners, 3.21 km from where the bomb exploded. But, in spite of everything, he was able to continue with life.
Turning a tree from seed into a bonsai is one of the most beautiful experiences you can have. Working on it every day, with patience and always showing respect towards and for the plant, will not only make it one of the most magnificent works created by human beings, but also the process of making it helps us to be calmer and Enjoy the little things in life more.
The Yamaki family bonsai began its path in 1625. It was cared for by them and little by little they have been transforming it into the majestic bonsai it is today. They had him inside their bonsai nursery, which was surrounded by a wall, so he and the Yamakis were saved the day the US dropped the bomb .
In 1976, in a remarkable act of forgiveness, the Yamakis gifted the pine along with 52 other trees to the United States . But they didn’t say anything about their history, until in 2001 a younger generation of Yamakis visited Washington. There the caretakers of the US National Arboretum learned what had happened to him three decades earlier.
The bonsai survived the worst that could have happened to it, and yet it lives on. We can do the same when we are presented with complicated situations.
