Ms. NM (a woman in her 70’s) N.Mさん（７０代）

October 26, 2014 On March 11, after the earthquake, the café “Mominoki” opened the doors to the victims under candle lights for relief. I was served some bread. The lady who owned the café passed away on Nov. 10, 2014. I feel that I am kept alive by others, rather than I am living on my own. After the disaster, my husband developed a cancer and needed to be hospitalized and undergo a surgery, so I commuted to the hospital everyday driving on the highway. The doctor had told us he may not last three years, however, he is still alive and is healthy to my great relief. My son suffers from depression, domestic violence, and experienced a car accident as well as a small fire. We bought the house that we had been rented in 2013. When the earthquake hit on March 11, my husband and I drove to a nearby elementary school to escape. Tofu, apples, and fried tofu were supplied. We spent 10 days in the car parked in the school yard holding our cat in our arms. My friend in Hachinohe came with some gasoline for the car and we drove to my inlaws and to my brother’s. The cat had died since then. It was rescued when it was a kitten in Tashiro Island. We had brought it back to Ishinomaki to take care of it. I believe the cat gave its life to my husband. The cat we have now loves to take a walk with my husband. Since the disaster, I had never really felt it had been difficult. I think I was too busy making it than feeling sorry about what happened. I never felt I was tired. Coming home from the hospital to visit my husband one day, in the rest area of the highway, a strong urge of wanting to eat fresh vegetables came to me, but I thought to myself that many others were victimized as well and are in the same situation as myself. My friend visited me from far and was taking pictures from top of the Hiwa Mountain. I didn’t feel like being in the picture and it was when I felt the difference in the state of mind between the outside world and the world I was in. We need to eat daily, and I feel I must do something to earn it. My friend once sent me a letter asking, “Are you back in normal?” I asked myself, “what is “normal” and what does it mean to be “back””? It’s difficult to put in words but does “normal” mean a life with abundance of stuff? Then what does it mean to be enriched? I’ve been thinking of what’s important in life. I am wondering if the disaster was God’s plan to test us, which had been embedded in our lives. My mother got divorced when I was little, and she raised me on her own since. She got remarried and I had to switch school multiple times. I was bullied at school and had told my mother I didn’t want to go to school. My mother had tied me up to a pillar and said “ok, no school, not leaving the house.” Later, I also went through a divorce. When I was younger, and was working as a nurse at a tuberculosis unit of a hospital in Sapporo, I felt like I figured out how life worked. The pain sheds like a thin film. Another layer tomorrow. At a rock bottom, maybe another bottom tomorrow. Let’s worry about it tomorrow. The experience of the 3/11 disaster was not painful or sad. I believe we can move on by forgetting the past.