By SAYURI IDE/ Staff Writer
April 4, 2023 at 18:32 JST
A child runs among cherry blossom trees along the Ebigawa river in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, on March 29. (Sayuri Ide)
FUNABASHI, Chiba Prefecture--The banks of the Ebigawa river are a popular local spot for cherry blossom viewing.
One cloudy Sunday in 2010, Hiromi Tanaka visited the site with her daughter and granddaughter, who was then attending a nursery school.
The girl’s father stayed behind after having a big fight with his young daughter.
The river was lined with an endless row of cherry trees in bloom. Food booths along the road provided a festive atmosphere.
Then suddenly, dark clouds loomed overhead and unleashed a heavy downpour.
The spring storm blew the cherry blossoms off the trees, showering petals on the dark river surface to form a breathtaking pink carpet.
Tanaka knew she had to go, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the dramatic spectacle of this unexpected event.
“How beautiful. …,” her granddaughter said, staring transfixed at the trail of pink floating on the river.
Soon after that, Tanaka’s daughter divorced her husband and their young daughter stayed with her mother.
Life was not easy for the single-parent household. Tanaka remembers even once having to pay her daughter's water bill.
The little girl had to move from one nursery school to another. When she was an elementary school second-grader, she moved to Nagano Prefecture because of her mother’s work.
Later, the girl lived apart from her mother when she moved in with Tanaka in Chiba Prefecture so she could join a wind orchestra at a local junior high school.
Too many things have happened to Tanaka’s granddaughter in her young life, hardships that most girls her age would not have had to endure.
She surely had to cope with loneliness.
Tanaka’s memories of the day of the sudden rainstorm are tinged with sadness as if it foreshadowed her granddaughter's turbulent childhood.
The girl, who will turn 17 this year, is attending a Tokyo high school.
Tanaka, now 74, prays for a bright future for her granddaughter so she can find her own way in life.
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