Reflections on the devastation

I saw the results of devastation like I have never seen firsthand before.  At times it appeared and felt like we were tourists, getting out our cameras and staring at sights that were surreal and bizarre.  Sights like a car on top of a 5 story building, a train in a graveyard, piles of vehicles upside down in the yards where people still live upstairs & spend their time trying to get debris out of their living rooms and bedrooms into piles on the street.  Sights of streets lined up higher than I can reach of old tatami mats, ruined refrigerators, useless TV sets, and water-logged furniture arranged according to categories, as only the Japanese would arrange their trash. Sights of empty train stations and traffic lights that don’t work, and sights of formerly proud Japanese lining up in droves to receive handouts to rebuild out of the rubble.

Then the reality sometimes hits that some of these cars had people in them & that each person in these lines have a story.  Many of these buildings that we are gawking at were the final moments and graveyards of numerous human lives—friends and family members of those we are handing supplies to and talking with while they wait their turn so patiently.  The shoes on the beaches that were washed up, came off of people that did not make it & the dead cat on the beach belonged to someone who probably washed ashore elsewhere.  The upside down boats that we find blocks from the ports may have had passengers and may have left behind widows and orphans. The reality is that life will never be the same in Ishinomaki, Onagawa, Shichinohama, Minamisenriku, Kessennuma, Sendai, Iwaki, or much of the rest of Japan  The devastation that we temporarily observed & temporarily tried to help, that we have now in some ways left behind, is a new and harsh reality for millions of Japanese.  It is a reality that cannot be conveyed by mere words or pictures, but is the story of individuals and families left behind.