After Tsunami, Grief and the Joy of Basketball

Courtesy of All Japan High School Athletic Federation

Ryo Sato, a basketball player at Kurosawajiri Kita High School whose father died in the tsunami in Japan in 2011.

When the once-in-a-millennium tsunami struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, it killed thousands of people and destroyed vast stretches of a rugged coastline. As the survivors in Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures started putting their lives back together, they came to rely on each other more than ever.

 Unlike in the United States, where athletes might play a different sport each season, Japanese students commit to a single sport that they practice year-round. As a result, teammates and coaches provided a support network for many athletes affected by the catastrophe. Sports also helped connect student-athletes to family members and neighbors, many of whom played sports themselves.

 Last year, the All Japan High School Athletic Federation held an essay contest for students coping with the disaster. Students who wrote most persuasively about the healing role of sports were given scholarships.

 We chose three winning essays and translated them into English. They include the story of a boy who writes that he became a man after he lost his father, and that he still looks over his shoulder on the basketball court; a miracle canoe and international friendship; and a granddaughter who honored her dead grandmother through swimming. In light of the hardship that has befallen the New York-New Jersey area in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the stories may provide solace and inspiration.

The first entry is by Ryo Sato, a basketball player who is in the second grade at Kurosawajiri Kita High School, Kitakami City, Iwate Prefecture. (The two other essays will appear on Wednesday and Friday.)

 

"Ittekimasu." [I'm going to school.] After I said that, I got out of the car. On March 11, we still had snow on the ground in Kitakami. I normally ride my bicycle to school, but my father had been driving me to school as a favor. I repeated this casual greeting as usual, but who would have thought that it was going to be the last words I would say to my father?

That afternoon, an enormous earthquake hit northeastern Japan. We were in the middle of class. We hid under our desks. After a long, fearful time, we came out from under our desks and evacuated outside. My classmates, teammates from the basketball club and I rejoiced and relieved that we were safe. But soon, I started worrying about my family. I checked my cellphone. There were text messages from my mother and father. I was relieved. I wrote back that I was safe, too.

But after I got home, I saw that the inside of our house was in an indescribable condition. Almost everything was scattered on the floor. I was very shocked at what I saw. But when I saw a picture of the tsunami hitting the coastline on my cellphone, the rooms in my house looked calmer.

I started putting things away with my mother. My father didn't come home. He went to the coast for his business. But we had received a text message from my father the night after the earthquake so we believed that he must be at an evacuation center. We didn't worry that much about him even though the phone line was out. Late at night two days after the earthquake, the electricity came back on. We could watch TV so we were able to collect information about evacuation centers. However, we couldn't find my father's name on the lists of people at the evacuation centers.

Six days after the earthquake, we found a name and age that matched my father's on a list of unidentified dead bodies that the Iwate prefectural police department printed in a newspaper. My mother and I drove to Taro, Miyako City in a hurry.

A driver's license was in a pocket of the clothes on a dead body. But in a tsunami, sometimes someone else's belongings get mixed with other people's belongings, so please carefully confirm the face and body, a policeman said.

Even though I was bracing for it, I couldn't describe how shocked I was. My mother was totally wiped out. She couldn't even write our home address. The only thing I could do for her was hold her hand. A policeman said to me, "From now on, instead of your father, you support your mother." I don't remember whether I nodded or just turned away.

A lot of people came to the funeral. Everybody said, "Ganbareyo" [try your best] or "Support your mother and sister." I felt pressure every time I heard these words. The reality is that I lost my beloved father. I have a responsibility to carry on for my father. I was ready to be crushed by the pressure.

Because of a letter from my homeroom teacher, or encouragement from neighbors and friends, I managed to overcome the pressure. I made myself a promise. "OK, I can do it."

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