Ten Year Old Letter

Next week it will be three years since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  There have been many news stories lately with updates on the area and the people.  One story that I thought was particularly moving was about parents who just received a letter written ten years ago by their daughter who went missing in the disaster. She graduated from high school in 2003 and went to work as a tour guide in Kyoto. In January 2004, when visiting the Meiji-mura museum in Aichi Prefecture, she took advantage of a service they offered.  She wrote a letter to her parents, giving it to the museum to post ten years later.  She wrote about her feelings about leaving home and going to work as a tour guide, about recently becoming engaged, and about whether her parents would be grandparents when they received the letter ten years later.  In the meantime, upon her parents' urging, she quit her job and moved back to her hometown, which was where she was living at the time of the tsunami.  She went missing and is presumed to have died.  Recently her parents received her ten year old letter, having no idea it had been written or of the feelings their daughter expressed.  She wrote: “Mom and Dad you’ve done so much for me, so I want to return the favor to you from now on.”

How fragile life is and how fortunate they are to know how their missing daughter felt about them.