The girl's death

Let me express how I feel in relation to the recent news of this girl's death.
I feel the same way most mothers do. It is terrible and a nightmare. I hope that the presence of neglect in our society won’t cripple the future of our children.

Whenever the story is aired, it makes me so depressed and angry toward the schools, education boards and police of two prefectures, Okinawa and Chiba, for their mishandling of her case and lack of coordination. The girl could have been saved and would be alive now if the teachers and officials had made more solid attempts at protecting the abused girl.

Gosh, whenever I recall the news, I want to scream at the guy from the education board for carelessly handing over the girl's questionnaire, full of her cries for help, to her sick father. She would still be alive if the education board hadn’t have handed over the questionnaire to her abusive father, who demanded the man show it.

After all, this only enraged her father and escalated his abuse of her.
She was found dead in the bathroom of her house. It makes me so depressed that no one could save her. These days, the occurence of domestic violence is spoken about in our society. Though abuse takes place behind closed doors, it is our duty to protect abused children on a more proactive and social level.

Farewell to My Father

The farewell came to us all of a sudden. 
My dear father left us earlier this month at the age of 91 due to old age. 
He stayed in bed just for three days. He didn't suffer from any pain. 
At the end, he was gone just as a candle flame goes out. 
He looked as if he were still sleeping. I believe that his life of more than 90 years was a fulfilling one. 

Yet I miss him so badly. Even at my age, in my 50s, I was still his child. 
It is harsh to learn that I can't see him, hear him or even reach him any more in this world.
How I wish I could have turned time backward again to talk to him just once before he was gone. 
I know that's a ridiculous idea, but none of us expected that he would be gone that day. 

This was his and our destiny, though. 

Now I recall many stories of my father and experiences I shared with him in my life. 
All of them are so dear to me. 

He personally loved drawing, writing, reading and loved chemistry. Also I loved him playing the harmonica. He was extremely good at Japanese calligraphy — a talent which he inherited from his own father. I luckily take after my father in some of these ways too. I am proud of being his daughter. 

Well I have to go forward for my mother and my own family. 
That is what my father expects me to do now. 
I truly believe so.

My childhood hero is gone

  

My childhood great hero is gone.

The former sumo grand champion Taiho passed away at the age of 72.

  While Japanese enjoy its longevity, I am afraid that his death has come a bit earlier.

It is no doubt that he is one of the greatest grand champions in the sumo history.

He  won the trophy 32 times in his career from 1956 to 1971.

This record has not yet been broken by now.

When I was a kid,  he was already on the top as a grand sumo champion.

He was strong, quiet, reserved and what's more handsome.

Oh I really liked him. He was strong and always had a good fight with his opponent.

Every match I watched on TV, it was too thrilling for a kid.

I recall I often watched him grappling with his opponent wrestler 

while I was hiding at the back of my father's shoulder 

or  covering my eyes halfway with my hands. 

I just couldn't keep an eye on an exciting match

while people roared loudly at two wrestlers' every move.

When I heard the TV announcer shout 

that Taiho threw his opponent down to the ground,

I felt released and happy.

People said he was a genius but he claimed that he was not.

He spoke that he always kept making a tremendous effort. 

"It was not easy." he said.   His favorite word was "patience." 

He also made a great contribution for the social welfare 

especially after overcoming a stroke.

He is a real Hero.  We will miss him.

(image is from web news)

January 17

(image from Yomiuri Online)

Seventeen years have passed since then.

The disaster took away more than 6,000 lives ,
which left a great sorrow and grief in their families and friends.

And

we will share the prayers again today at the exact time
when the Great East Japan Earthquake took place last March.

My thought is with them throughout the day today.

also my previous post in 2005

One month since then

One month has just passed by. Nothing has been improved so dramatically. We still have aftershocks over and over. People in Tohoku area are facing lots of realities to confront. Now getting free from the fear of death , they started their lives from " being nothing." Some went back and forth between their wrecked and muddy houses and the evacuation places to clean up their properties. Some just abandoned their hometown to another cities to let their children begin their school lives as they used to. I heard many families had made a hard decision to live in separate for various reasons. Boy, there are lots they have to face with.

Then, it is so encouraging to see dozens of volunteers and organizations are stepping into these areas to help them out to rebuild the land along with the Self Defense Force parties and other public support organizations from abroad.

However, there are many other people who don't move out to the safer places. They just stay each home that was damaged partly and try to find the way to clear their houses. Yet most of their conditions like those areas being away from the officially appointed evacuation spots, the daily necessities are not delivered enough. Even electricity, water and gas are not all back in full at places where piles of debris and rubble still sit, not to mention some mountainous and remote areas. The condition is not always satisfactory sanitary wise. It looks like hard to draw an exact map as for where to go distributing goods due to lack of detailed information.

One support organization called "HOPE International Development Agency" was asking people to make hygiene kits to hand out to people in heavily distracted Tohoku area. They claimed specifically 9 items to be set in a plastic bag. I read a flyer and when I finished reading it, I knew what to do next. I had checked the items at home and ran to the shop to get the rest in short supply.

When I got the donation drive of this agency at the Hilton Nagoya the day before the due date, there were several staffs working on the donated goods and sorting them out. I was surprised to see it was outside a hotel doorway. It was a bit windy. When they saw me approaching, they soon recognized my large paper bag full of kits. I was so glad they smiled at me. I hope our support will bring people over there lots of smile on their faces as well.

One month has passed but it will be a long long way to go for a recovery. I only pray for all those who are struggling and fighting against an on-going hardship -----for desperate residents, each member sent into devastated areas from organized bodies and of course for people working in the crippled nuclear stations.

(from Peace Boat website)

After March 11

(click for a larger image)

It'll be three weeks by tomorrow since the devastating earthquake and tsunami took away the total of more than 20,000 people's lives. It's not the matter of the total number of people. It seems to me that this natural disaster kept killing innocent people over 20,000 times. That is what this number accounts.
It took me for a while until I finally came back here to post today.
I would like to say thank you for all your concerns about me and my family right after the earthquake that hit Japan on March 11.
Three weeks ago that Friday afternoon, I felt the earthquake in my house. It was the hardest one I had ever had before. Thank god, it slowed down in the end. Nothing in the house fell down onto the floors. I turned on TV to get the report and knew the huge earthquake hit the northern part of Japan. Yet who had ever imagined the first historically gigantic tsunami in 400 years was heading towards the cities, towns and villages along the shores? Soon the terrible broadcast was on the air. The self-defense helicopters shot the groups of tsunami rushing on lands one after another and swept away everything including ships, houses, cars and people on and on. It was shocking to see cars on the roads were all swept away with debris. It was impossible for people to get rid of rushing tsunami. Tides and waves rushed up to the third or fourth floors of the buildings with huge amount of debris. There was no way for people in their two-story high houses to survive. At an elementary school, all the students and teachers were out of the buildings on the school field to evacuate from the earthquake, where the huge tsunami swallowed them all at once just like a cruel wild animal attacked its prey. No one could believe what they saw and heard on TV news.
I was just glued to the TV alone in the living room and got quite depressed before my husband and my son got home late.
For the first week from the day, I was quite depressed with the news and had a hard time to concentrate on my job nor house chores and what was worse, to get to sleep. My husband told me not to watch TV news anymore but it was almost impossible to be away from any news about the tragedy. I was in tears all of a sudden while driving with some flashbacks of the news on TV. Gosh I was safe here and all my family were with me and fine but why it was then I was trapped with the sense of guilty. I didn't have any words to post nor update my blog and my twitter, either.
Fortunately just about the same time, I had a chance to meet the Japanese group of Facebook fans in Nagoya and there I met new people who were nice enough to exchange information with me. That was a big help for me to get out of the negative mode in my daily life. Well I still lots to do halfway. I've got to keep my daily life first and then it will surely find the way what I can do for others in need of help.

Thank you for reading and stay in touch.

My laptop was dead

It was like the end of the world! My laptop was dead all of a sudden due to some hard drive fatal trouble. I back up my data regularly but still I lost some. Awwwww! Now for the time being until I get a new one, I use this small net book which my son lent it for me. Glad he had this one but you know it is quite smaaaaall! And as long as it's his, I'd better not customize it the way I like. It's a little bit exhausting. Now my friends, beware of your PC. It's a machine after all. Don't forget to back up your important files.

January 17, 1995

It's January 17th today.
And the news of the vast earthquake in Haiti has been keeping informed since then. Many people are injured and many are still missing. How terrifying.

The post which Lenore has just updated reminded me of writing about another story of earthquake.
I'm just linking my previous post which I wrote 5 years ago.

I never forget of the Great Hanshin Earthquake which killed more than 6000 people. In fact many TV channels have been broadcasting commemorative programs since this morning. Some of them make me feel so down to know how many people are still suffering from the sense of loss. But this is something which we should face with so that we have to set up better systems to protect our lives in case of disasters.

Thank you, Lenore for reminding me of the importance of keeping informing and sharing what we should never forget.

picture:asahi.com