Photo/Illutration Setsuro Sugawara visits the family grave with his grandchild. (Shigetaka Kodama)

HIGASHI-MATSUSHIMA, Miyagi Prefecture—Setsuro Sugawara is not looking for sympathy nor words of encouragement over the deaths of his wife and son in the 2011 tsunami.

He feels that the pain will never go away for those who lost everything in the disaster, but they will eventually find ways to cope.

For Sugawara, he found solace through his activities to help children orphaned in the disaster, particularly one girl who never smiled.

FEELINGS OF REGRET

Sugawara, 70, on March 11 went through the usual routine he has done every day for the past decade.

Speaking to the photos of his wife, Ikuko, and son, Ryo, displayed next to the family Buddhist altar, Sugawara said: “Today marks 3,654 days. We have entered the 11th year” since the natural disasters.

He has noted the passage of every single day because he can never forget his wife and son.

They were at home on March 11, 2011, when the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake rocked the Tohoku region. A tsunami warning was issued, and Sugawara told his 53-year-old wife and 27-year-old son to help an elderly woman in the neighborhood who had problems walking.

At the time, Sugawara was a member of the Higashi-Matsushima city assembly, so he felt it was his responsibility to drive around to make sure people were heading to higher ground.

But the tsunami lifted the car up, forcing Sugawara to abandon the vehicle and escape to the second floor of a friend’s home about 20 meters away.

He desperately tried calling his wife and son but received no response.

Twelve days after the disaster, Sugawara found the bodies of his wife and son at a morgue.

He said he cannot get rid of his feeling of regret that they would have been safe if they had come with him.

About 500 residents in that community died in the disaster.

At a memorial ceremony held by the city government on March 11 this year, Sugawara spoke on behalf of all residents who lost loved ones.

With his voice breaking up and tears welling in his eyes, Sugawara said, “Our experience of feeling helpless after thinking there might have been lives that could have been saved, the sense of total despair at losing everything, the grief at having the last thread of hope cut off as well as the sadness, regret, contrition and blaming oneself will, I believe, never go away in the future.”

HELPING ORPHANS SAVED SURVIVOR

The twin disasters left about 40 children in the city as orphans.

When he reflected on his own psychological scars, Sugawara could not imagine what the children were going through.

From summer 2011, Sugawara worked with local day care workers to help ease the psychological stress of orphans who were living at evacuation centers.

The children were gathered every other month to play ball games or create craftwork. The events have numbered close to 50, but Sugawara continues with the activity.

During the sessions, he came to know a young girl who never smiled. She was 5 at the time and lived with her grandparents because her mother had died.

The girl did not open up even after entering elementary school.

Sugawara had been in and out of hospital for treatment of his depression, so the girl’s situation overlapped with his own. But he could only watch over her from afar because he himself found it difficult to accept words of encouragement from others.

The girl joined the school volleyball team after entering junior high school and began smiling. That made Sugawara very happy.

Encouraged by the growth of the orphan girl, Sugawara said he felt as if he himself had been saved.

He ended his address at the memorial service with the following words: “Please do not go out of your way to inspire (those who have been hurt). There are times when even children and even adults just want to be left alone. You do not have to encourage us. I just hope you will look over us in a persistent manner like someone running alongside someone in a marathon.”

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