This New Year, as people around Japan are rejoicing, countless others will turn their thoughts to the dark days that followed the March 11, 2011, disaster. It hardly seems possible that a second New Year is already upon us.
This New Year, as people around Japan are rejoicing, countless others will turn their thoughts to the dark days that followed the March 11, 2011, disaster. It hardly seems possible that a second New Year is already upon us.With events so fresh, many people last year did not send New Year's greetings. But as they come to terms with their painful memories, some are starting to pick up the threads of their lives.The Asahi Shimbun asked victims and others to share their 2013 "nengajo" New Year's cards with readers. The following is a sampling:* * *
Haruto Kawasaki, a 4-year-old boy living in the Unosumai district of Kamaishi city in disaster-stricken Iwate Prefecture, wrote to his mother. She perished in the towering tsunami that swept coastlines of northeastern Japan.These days, Haruto plays hard and sleeps deeply.He drew a picture of a bus, which he used to go on a picnic at his day care center. He said he wanted to let his mother know that he is having fun with his friends and not to worry.He wrote his name by himself, while his grandmother Hiroko, 55, guided his hand so he could write the words "Genki dayo" (I’m fine).Haruto was taken to see the body of his mother Mariko, then 25, four days after tidal waves left a wasteland of the area he called home. The bodies of disaster victims were in rows so family members could identify them.Haruto asked Hiroko that night, "Do you think Mom will get well?"During the past summer's Tanabata Star Festival, Haruto penned his most earnest wish on a strip of colorful paper and hung it on a bamboo branch: "Mom, please come to see me."According to his grandmother, Haruto often says these days, "I will fly up into the sky and take Mom home with me."Hiroko and her husband are taking care of little Haruto, and gently have talked to him about his mother's death a few times. Haruto does not mention "Mom" as often as he used to, the couple said.Still, he is desperate to "see" her. That is the thought he clings to this New Year.* * *
Ken Kobayashi, a 32-year-old company employee in Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, began working as a volunteer in hard-hit Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, two months after the disaster.He visits the city every few months, taking a night bus for the journey up north. Kobayashi helps to clear the mountains of debris that still remain. He also helps to organize local festivals.He lights up when he comes across a beach that is no longer covered with tsunami debris after volunteers have cleaned up. He says it's like "watching a child of my friend growing up."Kobayashi wrote to members of an NGO that is trying to make things better in Ishinomaki.Using the Chinese character meaning "continue," he expressed his intention to continue volunteering his time in Ishinomaki, adding that he hopes his friends would do the same.Above all, Kobayashi said he hoped reconstruction activities will continue in Ishinomaki.* * *
Having been evacuated from Namie in Fukushima Prefecture, part of which is located in the no-entry zone around the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Nana Konno, 10, now attends Namie Elementary School. The school was reopened in Nihonmatsu in the same prefecture.Konno, a fifth grader, wrote to a girl who was a close friend and in the same class.They used to play together, but Konno said she had no idea where her friend moved to so she was unable to write an address where she wanted the greeting sent."We always held hands when we went out to play," Konno said. "So I want to hold hands with her when we see each other again."* * *
Naoko Miura, who has been studying illustration in Morioka since the disaster, wrote to everyone in her hometown, Otsuchi, in Iwate Prefecture.Miura, 20, did an illustration of a girl wearing a hair accessory--"Shinyama azalea"--the flower that is the symbol of the town, and holding a seagull, also a town symbol.Miura floated a four-leaf clover, hoping "happiness will come to the town," on the surface of the sea in the background.Miura is going to work at the reception desk of a local hotel, which was destroyed by the tsunami but is scheduled to reopen in June.She said she is determined to work there, even though her parents are vigorously opposed because the hotel is located so close to the coastline.