IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture--Even after two years, Takashi Suzuki tries to keep control of his emotions as he prays for his daughter at the family altar each morning.
IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture--Even after two years, Takashi Suzuki tries to keep control of his emotions as he prays for his daughter at the family altar each morning.
Suzuki, a cram school operator, lost his only daughter in the tsunami that turned northern coastal areas into a wasteland on March 11, 2011.
"Every time I light the incense sticks for her in the morning, my heart aches. I still think of that day. I feel I should have tackled the waves to go rescue her, and that if I had failed, it would have been better to die with her."
Himeka, 10, was in the fourth grade at a local elementary school in Iwaki, where 441 residents perished in the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
Suzuki, 37, describes his daughter as a very compassionate girl who never said anything selfish.
"She was always smiling warmly," he said.
During summer vacations, she was always talking about how her classmates were doing.
When she was a second-grader, a student at her school was killed in a traffic accident.
"I was told that Himeka was the only one who cried hard when school officials reported the accident at a students' assembly," Suzuki said.
Himeka was also fond of drawing. She started around the age of 2, and by the time she entered day care, she was an enthusiastic artist.
"Our second son was born in February 2011, the month before the disaster struck. Himeka drew baby food and things like that while watching a television program on childcare," he recalled.
Himeka also drew TV and videogame heroes such as Ultraman and Super Mario for the Suzukis' first son, Kosei, who was five years younger than her.
Suzuki was on his way to his cram school when the magnitude-9.0 temblor struck on March 11, 2011.
He returned home to check that his wife, Mikiko, and their second son, Jo, were safe.
Then he drove to a day care center to pick up Kosei before heading for his parents' place to meet Himeka.
His mother lived near the Shioyasaki lighthouse, known for its beautiful white exterior.
But when he arrived, he saw several people outside looking alarmed, Suzuki recalled.
Just as he started backing his car into an empty lot near his parents' house, he saw dark, surging waves approaching.
Trying to escape the waves that came crashing toward the car from the side, Suzuki stepped on the gas pedal.
"All I could think of at the time was escaping the waves," he recalled. He drove off with Kosei, leaving Himeka and his mother behind in his parents' house.
Two days later, on March 13, his mother was found dead. Five days after that, Himeka's body was found.
He identified her in a casket at a morgue.
"Her (restored) face was very beautiful," he said. "I asked my older brother beside me, 'Is this really Hime-chan?' I knew it was undoubtedly my daughter, but I don't think I wanted to accept the reality."
"It's Hime-chan," his brother said.
"I was able to convince myself because my brother said it was so," Suzuki said.
"All I could do in front of Himeka was cry and apologize. I told her repeatedly, 'I'm sorry I couldn't save you.'"
But the art that Himeka loved in life now provides some solace for her bereaved father.
In a school essay assignment titled, "To me 10 years from now," Himeka wrote, "I may be working as a designer or studying to become a designer."
Two years before the earthquake, she painted a picture of the Shioyasaki lighthouse, near her grandparents' home.
In her painting, the white lighthouse stands firm against the blue sea, yellow sky and green earth, with the orange sun shining in the background.
In autumn 2011, a Kyoto-based designer produced a handkerchief based on Himeka's painting.
These handkerchiefs are now on sale at a souvenir shop under the lighthouse, and all the profits are donated to reconstruction efforts and a charity for children orphaned in disasters.
"Himeka only lived for 10 years," her father said. "But through producing these handkerchiefs, she may be able to live for another 70 or 80 years."
Marketing handkerchiefs that Himeka "designed" months after her death has helped Suzuki come to terms with his loss.
"Producing Himeka's handkerchiefs and donating from the heart the profits made by selling them--this is a way for me to continue to raise Himeka," he said. "It may be my way of consoling myself as a father."