IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture--Koichi Komatsu knows in his heart that his wife Emiko did not survive the tsunami.
IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture--Koichi Komatsu knows in his heart that his wife Emiko did not survive the tsunami.
But that doesn't stop him from looking for her, even now.
Komatsu still visits the forlorn site of the home they shared, simply to be "close to her." He goes every Sunday.
I first met Komatsu, 63, last summer near the coast in Iwaki. Each time I came across him, he was always walking around his house, which was damaged by the March 11 tsunami.
He was looking for signs of Emiko, 62, peeking into homes in the neighborhood--some of which were close to collapsing--or looking in irrigation ditches filled with debris.
As Komatsu told me on the phone recently, he was standing on Feb. 26 at the same spot where I last met him. Since then, his house had been torn down and debris in the neighborhood removed.
A new traffic signal stands at a crossing. But there has been no sign of Emiko.
When he was young and living in Chiba, Komatsu said he became attracted to Emiko while she was working in an eatery in front of his company. She could cook any number of dishes, and made especially tasty “gyoza” dumplings.
Komatsu and Emiko were swallowed by a torrent of brackish seawater carried in by the March 11, 2011, tsunami. At that time, he recalls telling her, “(Our lives) are over.” Those were the last words he would utter to her.
Since then, he has recorded his memories of their life together on a memo pad.
After the Great East Japan Earthquake, he reopened his fish store. It keeps him busy and his mind off his sorrow.
Each Sunday, however, he visits the site where the couple lived--even though the ground is barren and there is nothing to see. Komatsu explains that he feels sorry for Emiko and does not want her to be alone.
“As I told her, ‘(Our lives) are over,’ she may have given up trying to survive,” he lamented.
“If I come here, I feel that I have come to the place close to her because I lived with her here for decades,” Komatsu added.
Then, he explained the layout of his former house, saying, “This is “tokonoma” (an alcove where a hanging scroll or flowers are displayed). This is a corridor. I and my wife were sleeping here (in the bedroom).”
On each visit, he places flowers at where the entrance was.
Komatsu often sees cars with license plates showing they are from outside Fukushima Prefecture. The drivers invariably are going to the nearby Shioyasaki Lighthouse.
He used to get angry with people who asked him about the tsunami, thinking, “We are not attractions.”
“But I feel recently that if I put flowers here, they will notice that my wife was living here.”
Souvenir shops near the lighthouse were packed with tourists. In the parking lot, it was clear that cars had come from as far away as Tokyo, Kanagawa, Gunma and Niigata prefectures.
Did the tourists notice the flowers?