Reconstruction

Recovery and legacy

Looking around our prefecture, I think we have a mix of places that have made progress with their recovery and places that still have a long ways to go. I imagine most of the people living on the coast still feel like they’re not there yet. I mean, where should we set our recovery goals? People who come from outside the prefecture can’t even tell which areas were damaged and which weren’t. They don’t know if a place has recovered, or if it was always like that. Knowing a place makes you feel sympathy for it.

It’s been six years since that disaster, and sometimes I wonder if it’s over now and it’s all in the past. I think the most important and most difficult thing is deciding what to leave behind and pass on as our legacy.

“What do we need to remember about the disaster?”

“Is it the tragedy of it?”

“Helping each other?”

“And what should we pass on to the next generation?”

Looking back on the disaster, I do think we were able to find the strength in our daily gratitude to keep going despite an uncertain future. Until the day we can rebuild, we’ll still keep going.