I'll come back as a firefly 

T he motivation of this painting came from a story about the Japanese kamikaze pilots, whose mission was to fly into American battleships in the World War II. Tome was a lady who ran an eatery in Chiran, a hidden valley close to Okinawa. The pilots, many still teenagers, spent their last days hanging around her place. There was a twenty-year-old pilot, Saburo, who on the eve of his mission told Tome he would see her at the eatery the next night. At her bafflement, he smiled and explained: "I'll come back as a firefly". When a firefly bobbed into the eatery the next night, Tome cried and said: "Look, everyone, it's Sabu-chan!"

(For the full story read Time Asia, Vol. 160, No. 8, September 2, 2002, p. 22)

This story also reminds me of a beautiful Russian song, "Zhuravli", which starts with:

I sometimes think that warriors brave,
Who met their death in bloody fight,
Were never buried in a grave
But rose as cranes with plumage white.

This painting is dedicated to all who had lost their own lives as victims of wars and who had lost their beloved because of wars.

(The complete English translation of "Zhuravli" is here)