NARA--Yoshiaki Fujioka, who runs a real estate agency in Ikoma, Nara Prefecture, picked up two delivered letters that were written long ago and stored for the past two decades.

Carrying their senders’ future hopes, the items were written by him and his wife, Noriko, and addressed to each other and their two children then aged 13 and 5.

“I was astonished and felt joy simultaneously with tears coming to my eyes, because I had completely forgotten about them,” said Yoshiaki, 60, who received the letters in November.

The couple’s oldest daughter, Chieri, 25, said about her now-deceased mother’s message, “She was looking forward to our bright future. I am happy to see that she loved us.”

The letters were part of a cache kept for two decades in the Great Buddha statue in Nara, which were returned to the writers or their families, eliciting a range of emotions from excitement to sorrow from those who received them.

Under the Great Buddha dream letter program, comments were solicited by the steering committee consisting of what is now The Asahi Shimbun Nara General Bureau and the newspaper’s Nara Mie Asahikai dealer.

Participants’ letters about their dreams for the future and other topics were taken out of the Great Buddha, or Rushanabutsu, the main object of worship at Todaiji temple, last year and were delivered to participants of the time capsule project.

In return, the organizing committee has been flooded with various reactions from those who participated.

MESSAGES FROM DECEASED LOVED ONES

Yoshiaki said he imagines what their children would be like if Noriko was still living.

Yoshiaki and Noriko studied at the same high school. The cheerful Noriko had many friends. She passed away due to illness in 2005 when she was 43, three years after she penned her letter.

Noriko’s message refers to her hope to “get along well with my husband forever.” Yoshiaki said he wondered whether his wife would have maintained the same feeling toward him for 20 years.

A variety of thoughts continued returning to and going from his mind as Yoshiaki read Noriko’s comment again and again until late at night.

He felt a sense of emptiness about his failing to share this emotional moment with Noriko. Yoshiaki felt pity for his wife since she could not see their children grow into adults. He also found himself keeping his family happiness all to himself.

“The letter made me realize and appreciate that I am here thanks to her,” said Yoshiaki. “Turning 60, I was given energy to continue doing my best.”

Tomoyo Shimotani, 53, a resident of Nara Prefecture’s Kashihara, recently received a letter from her oldest daughter, Sho, who had been killed in a traffic accident eight years ago.

“I feel as if I am provided with the traces of my daughter’s life,” said Tomoyo.

The 6-year-old Sho, who had just learned to write, explains that she “will enter elementary school in April” and asks herself 20 years in the future if she “has become a mother at 26.”

A letter penned by Tomoyo for Sho said, “Have you studied a lot while going through a spate of romantic experiences? What woman have you become, Sho?”

Reading her beloved one’s “lovely” comment, Tomoyo could not stop her tears.

“My 26-year-old daughter should have checked it out with a smile on her face,” said Tomoyo.

HAPPY DEVELOPMENTS

Yuki Okada, 64, who lives with her mother in Osaka’s Ikuno Ward, was startled by a letter from a parent who is nearing 89 years of age, now that she is showing signs of dementia.

“Though my mother currently does not remember me or consider me as her daughter, she writes in the letter that, ‘I may stay with my daughter in Osaka’ and ‘I pride myself on having such a kind daughter,’” said Okada. “I was really delighted to receive this surprise present from my mother.”

Shiori Furukawa, 28, a company employee in Kashiba, Nara Prefecture, received a letter from her father, Masami, 57.

Addressing his daughter 20 years later, Masami writes: “Life is just beginning. Continue moving forward and keep your chest out! I will always support you.”

Shiori will marry in August this year and received the comment on the very day her fiance visited her family home.

“It was great pleasure for me to learn how deeply my father loves me on this fateful day,” said Shiori. “I want to be a warm parent like my dad if we have children from here on out.”

Mariko Ito, 58, a beautician in Nara city, detailed in a letter her gratitude for her mother as well as her prayer that she could keep her family’s hair salon operating and peruse the message with her mother with a smile.

Whereas her mother is turning 86, she healthily continues working at her beauty salon in Tenri, also in the prefecture.

“I was aware that an ordinary feeling of happiness that I coveted has become a reality, being about to brim with tears,” Ito said. “I felt from the depth of my heart that people’s happiness, wishes and hopes always stay just beside them. I am grateful to the Great Buddha.”

These stories are among the episodes and opinions sent by 50 participants to the letter program’s steering panel, after their own messages were returned to the writers last autumn.

Naraharu Ueda, 76, a former chairman of the Nara Mie Asahikai who headed the panel, said he was “impressed most of all” by their emotional stories.

“We were working then to offer something that could take advantage of the Great Buddha’s divine grace,” Ueda said. “I was moved by the fact that we could contribute to people’s happiness. Watching their two-decade-old stories in life, I cried in sympathy.”

The Great Buddha dream letter project was held in 2002 to celebrate the 1,250th anniversary of the bronze statue’s completion. Participants were offered the chance to write to their future selves and their families.

Their messages were placed inside the Great Buddha in the hopes of their dreams coming true with the help of the statue. About 6,100 and 3,000 letters were returned to participants 10 years later in 2012 and 20 years later in 2022, respectively.