Youngsters who survived the 2011 triple disaster when they were sixth-graders at elementary school expressed their long-held hopes and honored lost childhood friends at Coming-of-Age ceremonies on Jan. 13.
Forty-two new adults took part in the ceremony in Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, where all residents evacuated the village after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, triggered the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Nine months after the nuclear accident, their elementary school held its graduation ceremony in a different school located in a neighboring municipality.
At that time, they wrote “a letter to themselves at the age of 20.”
At the Coming-of-Age ceremony on Jan. 13, they opened their letters and recalled their thoughts toward their hometown.
“If radiation has disappeared, I will build my house, open a ranch and spend a relaxing life,” Sho Nakagawa, 20, a university sophomore, said in his letter.
“I wrote this letter hoping that my village will return to its former environment where the greenery is beautiful. I’m happy because the Coming-of-Age ceremony was held in my hometown,” he said, reading what he had written years ago.
In Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, 333 people participated in a Coming-of-Age ceremony.
Saemi Tanaka, 20, a sophomore at Iwate Medical University, attended the ceremony with a photo of her friend, Keita Matsubara, who died in the tsunami at the age of 12.
In the photo, Matsubara is wearing a suit and a necktie.
Tanaka said she “presented” the formal wear to Matsubara and had a photo studio create the composite photograph of him.
Tanaka and Matsubara attended the same nursery school and elementary school. Their houses were close, and they often played together.
Matsubara was swept away by the tsunami when he was fleeing with his family in a car. Among all children at elementary schools and junior high schools in Ofunato, he was the only fatal victim of the tsunami.
When Tanaka watched the Coming-of-Age ceremony of her elder sister in 2017, she thought that she wanted Matsubara to join her in her ceremony.
During the silent prayer at the ceremony, Tanaka offered a message from her heart to Matsubara: “Keita, congratulations on your coming-of-age.”
(This article was written by Hiroshi Fukatsu and Yosuke Watanabe.)