Buddhist priest Honen Tanno in Sendai's Wakabayashi Ward is reading a sutra in the stifling hot August air while standing in a pine forest on the beach.
Buddhist priest Honen Tanno in Sendai's Wakabayashi Ward is reading a sutra in the stifling hot August air while standing in a pine forest on the beach.
His low voice mixes with the gentle sound of the waves. Although the clatter of heavy machinery sometimes interrupts, Tanno, 41, clad in a black clerical garment, retains his tranquility.
Tanno lost many of his acquaintances in the Great East Japan Earthquake. Even though he is a priest, he was perplexed in the same way as nonclerical people were after the March 11 event shattered so many lives.
"Is there something I can do (for them and the survivors)?" he thought.
He was temporarily helping in sending assistance goods to his local community. However, his desire was not satisfied.
About a month after the disaster, he erected a "sotoba" (altar) in a corner of an affected area and prayed for the repose of the souls of the dead people. Since then, he thinks his feelings have been calmed.
"I think I wanted to save myself by doing something," Tanno says.
He says that showing himself to the dead people will give repose to their souls.
"That is not because I am a Buddhist priest," he adds.
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Months after the March 11 disaster, Kimiko Toyomane of Yamada, Iwate Prefecture, was still hesitating to pray for the souls of her parents, Sadao Tabata, 83, and his wife, Shigeko, 81. Their bodies have not been found.
"I was thinking that my parents remained alive by drifting to an island somewhere," the 53-year-old Toyomane recalls.
Eventually, she applied to the municipal government for recognition that her parents were dead. The application was accepted, and she held funerals for them in late July.
"I thought that I have to obtain the recognition by the midsummer obon holidays (a traditional memorial service season in Japan)," she says.
She still does not feel that her parents have actually died. But she now prays for the repose of their souls.
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Takashi Suzuki lost his 10-year-old daughter, who had been dreaming of becoming a designer. Although his job kept him busy in the weeks and months after the black waves plowed through Fukushima, he was finally able to take a one-week vacation.
"I have held back my feelings in recent months," says the 35-year-old. "But now I am going to cry as much as I want during the obon season."
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Kahoru Satake, 67, who lost her husband in the Great East Japan Earthquake, recently bought a used house as her old house was destroyed in the disaster.
"I have never experienced such a bad year," she says. "All we can do now is to live positively."
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Akihito Kato lost his 30-year-old son, who had been working in a nursing care facility for elderly people in Iwate Prefecture. Since early this month, the 63-year-old Kato has burned pine branches in front of the entrance of his house every night, a tradition in parts of Iwate.
"In past years, this practice was enjoyable," he says sadly. "But this year, it is not."