Still shaking…

The people of Japan, including those of us that have more recently found ourselves here, have had just over a week to absorb the sudden devastation that appears to have claimed upwards of 25,000 lives and displaced an additional 170,000. In additional to the unfathomable loss of family and friends, as the sensational images spread all over the western media attest, entire communities, up to 10km inland, were laid to ruin with barely 15 minutes warning.

On Friday, March 11th, 15 hours after the earthquake, I ate dinner by myself at a Thai restaurant in Calgary, Alberta and had the misfortune of overhearing a conversation between four professional adults about the tsunami. While they were not likely highly influential people, they struck me as relatively well-educated and as somewhat representative of the norm. It was hard to hear them gloss over the shear magnitude of the situation to pass judgment on people of Miyagi for not fleeing more quickly. In my mind, I imagined those that tried to run, might have successfully gathered a few precious belongings or supplies, only to find roads locked with traffic.

It was hard not to get up out of my seat and explain to them that to move 10km in Japan, particularly in a densely populated city, would have been nearly impossible in those fleeting minutes. Having spent more than a few nights in Sendai, I could have also shared how flat it is and how higher ground would have been far away for most. I could have explained that people would have just been beginning to sweep up broken glass in their homes and offices when the tidal wave warnings sounded. Further, the steep topography and population density of Japan requires that people live and work on any and all flat ground and isn’t like North America where people can avoid the flood plains. I don’t know if I could have explained that in places the tidal wave was as tall as a 3 story building and that flood plain or not, this was unstoppable.

As hard as it was to listen to this conversation, it wasn’t malicious. Their words only revealed ignorance and perhaps a natural defense mechanism to help convince themselves that in the same situation they would have been safe. To some extent we all play these games. If you smoke, you convince yourself that you won’t be battling for your life against lung cancer. When we drive, we believe we won’t be in a fatal accident. When you live in a seismically active location like Japan, smaller earthquakes become a part of life – we’ve felt 4 in Yokohama, just today. With the slow progress at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, we are becoming more and more accustomed to the reality and lexicon of atomic energy.

While the situation in Japan continues to unfold, milk and eggs are back on the shelves. There lines are gone at the gas stations and while it is 20 yen more per litre than it was just a week and a half ago, things are beginning to return to “normal”. For me personally, I haven’t decided what I want normal to be just yet. If normal lacks empathy like the conversation in the restaurant, we’re better off without it. If normal means not living in fear of escalating radiation, I’m hopeful for it’s return. One memory from all of the images of the past week that I am not willing to let go of, however, is that of the Mika Sato in Ishinomaki, broken after finding the body of her daughter, Airi, in the charred kindergarten bus that was caught by the tsunami while bringing the children home after school. The news report read that the children in the bus were found “huddled together”. As a parent of two small children, I can and can’t imagine this level of devastation. Normal must mean moving forward but at the same time making sure we do not forgot to look back to appreciate what we have. As painful as it is to accept, it isn’t always possible to protect that which we most cherish. – AC

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