- 11:16 PM CST, 2:16 PM JST At this point I had just gotten done cleaning up from painting and tweeted that I was done for the night.
- 11:46 PM CST, 2:46 PM JST Earthquake struck
- 11:52 PM CST, 2:52 PM JST Tweeted out to friends and family living in Japan to be safe
To horrible to believe
So many emotions have gone through our minds and hearts that it is virtually impossible to classify and label them all. The purpose of this post is just a reflection of the moments that happened on my end of the world and how it affected me personally.
The day started out like any other, trying to sleep in and getting a slow start. The day was overcast and my spring break was coming to an end. I had decided that I was going to work on the nursery during my break and I was just starting to see the end of the project. I began cleaning out the room on Sunday and was nearly done painting the murals and characters from My Neighbor Totoro. I sketched out Totoro on the wall and tweeted my progress as I went about cleaning up for bed.
Sitting down to the computer, I checked on Facebook to see what everyone was up to before shutting everything down for the night. Not quite ready for bed yet, I grabbed my iPad and fell on the sofa to watch some TV. Firing up Twitter, I see that there’s an earthquake in Japan; nothing new. Then as I continue to read up the stream, I see some concern in the posts, bordering on fear. Apparently this was something different.
Starting to worry, I start to tweet friends and family as to there whereabouts and safety. Thankfully everyone that I am able to get in touch with is ok, but there are still some unaccounted for. Thankfully by the next day all were found safe. Amazingly at this point there is no news coverage on CNN. Glued to my Twitter feed, I am adding and searching any news outlet and person of authority bringing me coverage and information and retweeting any useful information to friends that are not near any form of media. Oddly enough, here I was on the other side of the world informing people in their own country about what was occurring. The power of social media these days.
Eventually CNN cut in with live coverage and the images are worse than I ever could have imagined. All I can think at this point is that there is not going to be a country to return to. Our future son (at the time) will never get to discover the country that his parents love so much. A worst case scenario is all that keeps playing through my mind. Family and friends are going to be lost and the ocean is going to reclaim the land that I have come to think of as a second home.
But there is hope. You just have to search it out.
Somewhere online I came across an article that pointed me in the direction of a news app from NHK that would give me coverage of the disaster from Japan in English no less. Needless to say I was glued to my iPad for several days trying to wrap my mind around what had happened and trying to remind myself that it could have been much much worse. Seriously, it could have been. At the time I wish that I had the money to go there and do something, anything to help out, but all I could do was sit here and be an open ear for friends to talk to me about it and a conduit of news for my family to keep them posted. Perhaps that was what I NEEDED to do; to be an open ear for them to talk to and vent about their fear and frustrations. We all have our purposes I suppose.
A year later and there are still issues arising from the disaster and still there are roughly 3,000 still unconfirmed missing. For many people this was a daunting time and suicide rates even increased afterwards. My family and I still love the country so much that we would move there if we could. People ask if we are afraid, and I reply that it is just as dangerous to live there than it is here. I for one, plan on visiting again and again as often as I am able so that we can tell our son about the great eastern earthquake of 3/11 and how the country persevered through it and came out stronger.
We love you Japan.
