Survivor

I had taken my time to walk to the port of Ofunato after a month. I feel I really need to have a walk around today after that long days of being out of the town.

I pass by the church hoping to offer some prayers and greet the blessed sacrament, unfortunately it was locked. So I just decided to pass by and pray outside. I plan to visit the place where we had the celebration of the one year anniversary of the tsunami, near the port. So I headed to the port and while passing through some areas, I could sense that people shoot suspicious looks on me, as I stop to watch the garden near the destroyed railway. It's amazing to see how vegetables grow in that area. I reach then the area of the Ofunato station. A taxi is waiting for a passenger that of course would never come because there is no one coming in that area. Then I pass by a sushi restaurant near the river. It's a good place to visit too when I have some visitors later.

As I am nearing my destination, I begin to see some trees around that destroyed park and wonder why, only the surviving Matsu tree received so much media attention, when in fact there are trees too that survived the tsunami here at the port of Ofunato.  Although broken, they have bear their beautiful flowers last season during the Sakura blooming period. 

I can compare these trees to our life, we can be like that Matsu tree of Rikuzen Takata, a survivor, yet dying. And it has allowed itself to be helped by others in order to survive. Or this Sakura tress, which are broken by tsunami, yet had shown signs of liveliness and vitality. A truly independent survivor. Some people are survivor too yet they stop living and stop to hope that one day everything will be back to normal. Or some people broken, yet they ride wite the season, living their life not as it used to be, but as it come. Yet hoping for a brighter future, a future that all these things is but a bad dream, a nightmare. And that one day, everything will be in their order.