The couple who had a family again after losing both daughters to the 3.11 tsunami look to the future

From left, Kiaki Takahashi, his son Haruki, daughter Otto and his wife Chiharu are seen in Wakuya Township, Miyagi Prefecture on February 23, 2022 (Mainichi / Daisuke Wada)

Wakuya, Miyagi – The living room echoes with the laughter of brother and sister Haruki and Oto Takahashi. They look just like their two sisters he never knew, who died in the tsunami caused by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.

Kiwaki and Chiharu Takahashi, both 48, lost their two daughters in the tsunami. Both attended Ishinomaki Municipal Okawa Elementary School in Miyagi Prefecture, where 74 of the school’s 108 students died in the disaster. After that, Takahashi left their home near the elementary school to move to the inner town of Wakoya.

In the evening when the first star appears in the sky, the family stares. “Is this Yu? Or is it Mi?” ask Haruki, their 6-year-old son, and younger sister Otto, 4-year-old. When they died, Yu was ten years old and in fourth grade, while Mei was eight and a second grader.

Their mother Chiharu said to them, “I wonder which one it is. They are watching you from the sky.” Kiwaki and Chiharu wonder when the day will come when Haruki and Oto will ask them why their sister died, and how much they understand what happened.

This photo provided by their parents shows Yu Takahashi, right, and her younger sister Mie, who were killed by the tsunami.

Haruki and Otto are both shy but love to dance, just like their older sisters. But Haruki’s latest obsession with catching insects is a little different from those of his older sisters. Recently, his summer routine includes playing in the woods and swamps of his parents’ old hometown. Okawa Primary School nearby.

“It’s Yu and Mi’s school. We had a house there too,” said Kiwaki and Chiharu, but Haruki continued to chase the dragonflies with his net. Chiharu often slowly followed Haruki as he looked around and remembered life before the disaster. “Without these kids, I wonder if I would remember the disaster more,” she said.

Haruki was born at the end of summer 2015. After the disaster, the couple wanted another child, but initially experienced the loss of two children. They found encouragement from a friend who also lost their child in disaster and went on to have a child. When Chiharu got pregnant, those around the couple congratulated her. They named the newborn baby Haruki, which reflects their “hope”. Otto came two years later.

Their new family gives them a chance to look forward. In mid-February, Otto’s kindergarten teacher approached the family to comment on Otto’s cute hat. Chiharu replied that the hat had been in the family for 20 years, before adding to the bewildered teacher, “Otto had older sisters, but because of the earthquake…” The teacher then apologized for asking about them, but Chiharu said, “It’s okay. I want to talk about Otto’s sisters, too.”

A married couple Kiwaki and Chiharu Takahashi watch their son Haruki and daughter Otto play in Wakuya Town, Miyagi Prefecture on February 23, 2022 (Mainichi/Daisuke Wada)

As Haruki and Otto grew, their parents also felt new kinds of pain, too. While washing Haruki’s legs in the bathroom recently, Kiwaki relives flashbacks when he finds Mei’s body two days after the disaster. Her body was among the many that had been laid out on a street near the school. Every time he touched Haruki’s leg, he thought of how deeply scarred Mei’s leg must have been so painful. Haruki starts elementary school this spring.

Otto once told her parents that she wanted to see Yu and Mei move. In fact, Yu’s DVD is still there: A “come-of-the-come-ceremony” was held at her school just nine days before the disaster. “Thank you for 10 years. Thanks to my mom and everyone, I can enjoy my life so much,” she reads aloud in it. To this day, the couple cannot watch it.

In late February, the family went out together when Otto suddenly asked from the back seat of the car, “Why did Yu and Mei go to the stars?” Haruki, who was sitting next to her, replied, “They died in the tsunami.”

“Did you know?” Chiharu couldn’t ask. “I’ve heard it before,” Haruki said, looking unfazed. Chiharu felt a load lifted from her shoulders. I wondered if she had told him before without realizing.

If a couple took their children to the area near their former home and Okawa Elementary School, or if Haruki and Otto saw pictures of the tsunami in the news and then pooled their experiences together, they would ask to know more about that time. Chiharu says she wants to “explain the details to them when those times come.”

(Japanese original by Shin Yasutaka, Regional News Department)

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