ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--Tomoko Sato takes special care of the morning glories that she has planted under the eaves of her small house, feeling that they are gifts from her young son.
ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--Tomoko Sato takes special care of the morning glories that she has planted under the eaves of her small house, feeling that they are gifts from her young son.
Indeed they are sprouting from seeds left behind by Kenta, who was killed in the March 11, 2011, tsunami.
After the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake struck, Kenta and the other children at the city’s Okawa Elementary School were told to remain on the grounds of the facility. The teachers and children waited for about 50 minutes before the tsunami struck.
Kenta, a third-grader, died along with 70 percent of his schoolmates that day.
Kenta’s home was not affected by the earthquake or tsunami. That is where Tomoko found a paper bag at her son’s desk with the morning glory seeds from a flower he had grown when he was in the first grade. On the bag, written in pencil, were the words, “To my future self.”
Shortly after the disaster, Tomoko and her husband, Mitsuhiro, 53, left their home and rented a small house in a remote part of the city, partly because it was too painful to hear the voices of neighborhood children.
The couple now sleeps next to an altar in their house on which Kenta’s memorial tablet is placed.
They also set the bag of seeds next to his portrait.
“I will see you there first,” the father says to Kenta’s picture.
“Kenta likes his mother best,” counters Tomoko. “I will see him before you.”
In March, the month Kenta and his classmates would have graduated from elementary school, families of the 23 children who lost their lives filed a lawsuit with the Sendai District Court against the city and the prefecture, seeking compensation for damages.
They believe that if the school had evacuated the children to higher ground located behind the school before the massive tsunami hit, they could have been saved.
They say the children could have also escaped the tsunami if they had used a school bus parked in front of the gate to carry them to safety.
On the day of the first hearing in the lawsuit in May, Tomoko planted seven of the 20 seeds and vowed to Kenta’s spirit that she would do her best.
Eleven days after sowing the seeds, one sprouted. Tomoko screamed with joy. She then sowed four more, one of which also sprouted.
In July, when the first morning glory bloomed, the couple captured an image of the flower with a cellphone camera. Additional buds sprouted from the morning glory vines in succession.
Even though it brings tears to her eyes when she talks about her son, she smiles when she sees the flowers that grew from his bag of seeds.
The flowers bloom as if they are a gift from heaven for two parents who are finally standing strong.