NATORI, Miyagi Prefecture--Truck driver Takeyuki Terasawa always carried a decade-old picture of a baby boy with a big smile in the cab of his vehicle.
The baby was Terasawa’s long-lost son, Kazumi. The 45-year-old truck driver from Tagajo, Miyagi Prefecture, last saw him when he stormed out of the house after an argument with the boy's mother when Kazumi was 3.
On the road every day he looked at his son's innocent smile he kept in his driver’s license holder and told himself, “Once he becomes an adult and if he wants to meet me, I will see him, again.”
But that someday will never come.
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and towering tsunami hit the Tohoku region. Kazumi, who was 13, died in the disaster and so did his father’s dream of a reunion. He was a first-year student at Yuriage Junior High School.
HOPING FOR CONNECTION
On June 10, Terasawa visited Yuriage Elementary and Junior High School in the Yuriage district of Natori, a coastal city south of Sendai. He hoped to find something to help him become better acquainted with his late son.
Terasawa visited along with other bereaved families who had lost loved ones in the tsunami, which destroyed the school.
When the damaged school building was later dismantled, students and alumni wrote messages on blackboards that were used in classrooms. These boards have been saved and kept at the new, consolidated Yuriage Elementary and Junior High School.
Inside the school's storage, Terasawa saw a blackboard that used to hang in Kazumi’s classroom.
“It was fun to be in the same class with you, Kazumi! I will visit here again. Thank you,” one former classmate wrote.
“I didn’t have much chance to talk with you, Kazumi, but it was a pleasure to spend time with you in this classroom. I will never forget!” another wrote.
In Terasawa’s eyes, these words were a living testimony to Kazumi.
“My son was living a decent life,” Terasawa whispered. “I’m glad to know that he was a normal junior high student.”
Terasawa also met a teacher there who used to work at Yuriage Junior High eight years ago. Through the teacher, Terasawa learned that Kazumi was a member of the school's kendo club.
LAST MEMORY OF SON
Kazumi was born more than two decades ago when Terasawa was in a relationship with an older woman. They never married and kept separate surnames.
The couple had a stormy relationship and argued over little things at their home in Yuriage.
One day, Terasawa couldn't take it anymore and stormed out in frustration.
Kazumi was smiling at the door when his father left. That was the last and lasting image of Kazumi for Terasawa, who never returned.
On the afternoon of the fatal day in early spring 2011, Terasawa was behind the wheel of a truck as usual.
After the earthquake hit, he turned on the radio to check on the situation in Yuriage on the way back to the office.
Crawling along in heavy traffic, Terasawa said to himself, “Kazumi must have fled to safety.”
Several days later, however, Terasawa learned that Kazumi was missing via the Internet. In early May 2011, a newspaper article reported on Kazumi’s death.
'WHAT-IFS' HAUNT FATHER
Terasawa still remembers vividly the morning Kazumi was born and when he heard him crying for the first time at the hospital.
He also never forgets his last moment with Kazumi. Having no idea that his father was about to abandon him, the little boy showed nothing but an adorable smile--the enduring image for Terasawa who has lived with a piercing guilt.
Now Terasawa can’t stop wondering about Kazumi.
What was he like as a teenage boy? Did he have friends? Was he ever bullied? Did he resent the father who abandoned him?
Terasawa is aware how selfish it is for him to still consider himself as Kazumi’s father. He also has yet to see Kazumi's mother again.
Terasawa is tormented with many “what-ifs.”
What if he were patient and stayed together with his family for a little longer? Then the family might have moved to a safer location and Kazumi wouldn’t have had to die.
Terasawa doesn’t know the location of Kazumi's final resting place. But he hopes one day to visit his son's grave and put his hands together and apologize to him.
If Kazumi were alive today, he would be 22.
Had his son forgiven him, Terasawa wonders if they might even have drank together.