A Year Later

It's been a year since Northern Japan was struck with one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded.  It's been a year since a devastating tsunami swept inland and wiped towns and villages off the map.  It's been a year since the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant went into melt-down and sparked the worst nuclear disaster in history.

I remember watching video after video last year, unable to turn away, my heart in my throat.  I remember thinking, it all looked so unreal.  We watch movies and marvel at special effects that look real; here I was, watching something so horrifyingly real, I couldn't comprehend.

Watching the videos of the tsunami last year, I was struck, not only by the horrific scenes being carried out before my eyes, but also the sounds.  Cars scraping and crunching together; houses and buildings sliding away and the constant sound of rushing, black water.  I had never imagined the sounds that would accompany such destruction.  These were not videos shot from a safe distance, high above; these were in the thick of it, to the point that you wondered how the person filming it even survived and you watched, worrying that the witness would get swept away.

The images that followed, the mountains of debris, the crumpled houses, the boats left on dry land or even on top of buildings defied belief.  I got constant email and Facebook updates from friends and family in Japan, describing in chilling detail how awful it was and yet saying that it was even worse, that it couldn't be described, it had to be seen to believed.  Well, we did see and we still couldn't believe.  We saw an apocalyptic landscape beyond anything anyone could have imagined and we couldn't comprehend.

In recent days, newspapers have been publishing photos showing how far the clean-up has come.  The more recent photos of cleaned up areas only seem to emphasize how total, how complete, the destruction was.  What had once been neighborhoods, with tidy houses and postage-sized gardens, you first saw piles of debris filling the screen; the next shot, the debris cleared, you could see for miles, as if the neighborhoods had never been.

There were scenes of hope as well.  A woman, looking dazed and shell-shocked in one photo, reunited with her little boy in another.  A road, sunken and broken, remade.  Children going back to school.  There are signs of life, signs of rebuilding, but they are small and quiet.

Silence, where once there was sound, is deafening.  Vast space, where once there was life, is crushing.  I imagine the silent emptiness and my heart still breaks for this country and its people.  I dream of seeing Japan rebuilt and thriving again but, like so many of those who are still living this triple-disaster, I wonder how long it will take.  The only thing I know for sure, it may take longer than the world is willing to remember but, I can promise the people of Japan, some of us will never, ever forget.

My thoughts and prayers will always be with you, people of Tohoku.  I believe you will prevail.  Ganbare!

P.S. I'm still making pins in support of the rebuilding efforts in Japan.  If you would like a pin, please click on the link below to donate to MercyCorps.

https://www.mercycorps.org/fundraising/lynelletarter

ありがとうございます。(Thank you very much).