MINAMI-SANRIKU, Miyagi Prefecture--At a hotel on the top of a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Minami-Sanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, a female hotel worker smiles as she helps care for about 500 evacuees and construction workers.
MINAMI-SANRIKU, Miyagi Prefecture--At a hotel on the top of a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Minami-Sanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, a female hotel worker smiles as she helps care for about 500 evacuees and construction workers.
Asked about her ever-present smile, the woman, Taiko Endo, 58, said her daughter is expecting a baby soon.
Her oldest daughter, Erika Okuda, 27, was married just six days before the Great East Japan Earthquake struck northeast Japan.
On March 11, when her husband went to the Ishinomaki city hall to submit the marriage documentation, the temblor struck.
Okuda's husband tried to help his sister and grandparents escape the subsequent tsunami. But everyone died, and their bodies were found the next day.
Watching her mother-in-law cry over the bodies of her loved ones, Okuda asked, "Would you still have me as your daughter-in-law?"
Okuda again submitted her notification of marriage to city hall.
Acknowledging that the original notice was lost in the tsunami, officials accepted the notification in June, retroactive to March 11.
Okuda's baby due is early July, Endo said, adding that she told her daughter to stay strong because she will be a mother now.