Photo/Illutration Hirokatsu Yokose cherishingly keeps a scrapbook left by his girlfriend who died in the 1985 JAL crash. (Kaho Matsuda)

Former sumo wrestler Hirokatsu Yokose is undergoing rehabilitation after suffering from a brain hemorrhage, and the long road to recovery has been difficult.

But when things get tough, Yokose, 56, always draws emotional support and courage from loving messages from his late girlfriend.

“Keep your hopes alive always and do your best,” she said in one of the countless messages she wrote.

But Yokose can never thank her in person or reach out to touch her.

Thirty-six years ago, she died in a plane crash.

On Aug. 12, 1985, Yokose had lunch in Tokyo with his 20-year-old girlfriend and her mother.

He met her the previous year when she visited the Sadogatake stable, to which Yokose belonged as a third-year sumo wrestler, under his wrestler name Kotoasaki.

The woman was a daughter of the chair of one of the stable’s supporter associations.

The young couple kept their romance secret from others. They planned to marry once Yokose became a sekitori wrestler in the top two divisions.

After their lunch, the woman was supposed to ride a Shinkansen home with her parents.

“I will call you when I get home,” she said.

She wore a navy blue dress with a white belt that day. Yokose thought she looked good in it.

Several hours later, Yokose saw a breaking news headline that read: “A Japan Airlines flight has disappeared from radar.”

Yokose could not believe it when he saw her name on the boarding list along with the names of her parents.

He kept calling her home. His hands shook. Nobody answered.

The JAL jumbo jet crashed into a ridge of Mount Osutakayama in Gunma Prefecture, killing 520 passengers and crew.

At a morgue, he was reunited with her remains. A portion of her white belt was still attached to the burned segment of her body.

Later, Yokose received a package from her friend, which contained a scrapbook that was found in her home.

Yokose turned the pages and found it full of newspaper clippings of his bouts and win-loss standings. Alongside each article, he saw her handwritten notes.

In one note, she wrote she was worried about his first bout as a sandanme division wrestler: “I was anxious, but he won. Now I breathe a little easier. Do your best at every bout, please.”

In another note, she was concerned about his lower back problem.

“You said you have pain in your lower back. I just don’t want you to get injured.”

The note ended with a heart-shaped illustration.

Yokose could not stop crying. He had no idea that she thought about him this much, he said.

A year after the accident, he visited the crash site for the first time.

He saw a small wooden grave marker that read, “Died at the age of 20.”

“I’m sure she wanted to live much longer. I am alive and what can I do?” he asked himself.

The only answer he could think of was sumo.

He practiced hard and won a jonidan championship, the second-lowest division, without losing a bout in the September tournament that year.

The biggest achievement of his career was reaching the third-tier makushita division.

After retiring from sumo at the age of 33, he opened a “chanko nabe” stew restaurant in Osaka, not far from her grave.

Currently, he works as a part-timer and lives in Tokyo. After suffering the brain hemorrhage, he is still recovering from paresthesia of limbs and linguistic disabilities.

But he has committed to rehabilitation because he wants to climb Mount Osutakayama again to visit the site where she died. Her scrapbook has given him courage and hope, he said.

Aug. 12 marked the 36th anniversary of the tragedy.

At 6:56 p.m., the time JAL Flight 123 crashed into the mountain, Yokose looked up at the sky and joined his hands in prayer.

“I will never forget you. I will come to see you again.”

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