TOKYO >> Akinobu Tooyama attended the peace memorial ceremony on Aug. 6 in Hiroshima for the first time to commemorate his uncle, Hiroyuki Kosen, who died as a result of the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima 79 years ago.

Tooyama, 56, is a Buddhist monk who lives in Yamanashi prefecture.

Mutsuko Tooyama, his 82-year-old mother, was Hiroyuki Kosen’s sister. She was 3 when the bomb hit. This year, she asked her son to attend the ceremony in her place. “You should go this time because I can’t endure the extreme summer heat,” she said.

They both want to share Kosen’s story with the next generation.

Kosen, 12 years old and a first-year student at a junior high school in Hiroshima when he died, was about 500 meters (about a third of a mile) from the hypocenter of the blast.

He suffered severe burns and lost his eyesight. A neighbor found him screaming, “Please take me home!” and carried him on a stretcher to his home, a temple on the outskirts of the city.

When his mother, Masako, fed him canned peaches, he said, “Delicious,” and died shortly afterward.

Masako Kosen, who died 15 years ago, seldom talked about the bombing and tucked away photos of her son where no one could find them.

Her daughter, Mutsuko, was at the temple when the bomb exploded and was unhurt; she has no memory of the incident. Nevertheless, she decided to give a testimony about her brother in 1995, the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.

“There is no one else but me who can tell the story of my brother and prove he really existed,” she said.

Fortunately, an account by their mother about her son’s final days, in an interview with a Hiroshima TV station, had been chronicled in a book.

Mutsuko Tooyama repeatedly read the book and spoke at schools in Yamanashi prefecture, where she moved after marrying. She has continued to share stories about her brother, even after suffering a brain aneurysm in 2014.

But recently, her strength has waned and her voice has become weak.

Akinobu Tooyama did not know what his uncle looked like until 2013, when during a family trip, he visited the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims.

When he saw that the hall featured pictures of victims, he thought he might be able to find a photo of Hiroyuki.

Tooyama entered the name on a touch screen, and a picture of a young boy wearing a school cap appeared. It was his uncle. It’s not clear who submitted the photo, or under what circumstances. And it didn’t matter to Tooyama, who was deeply moved by the realization that his uncle had actually lived and that his life had ended at the tender age of 12 in Hiroshima.

So when Tooyama’s mother asked him to attend the ceremony, he agreed without hesitation, believing it is now his turn to help share his uncle’s story.

With the assistance of friends, the monk is making videos of his mother telling her brother’s story, to document her testimonial while she is still able to speak.