And I thank you in return.

[March 28 2:20PM]

Time seems to be passing faster than ever before since the earthquake, and since I’ve come back from Iwate prefecture.  Thank you for all your comments.  I wanted to respond to each and every one of you, but it doesn’t quite seem feasible, so I am thanking you here instead.

At first, when a friend told me, “There are a lot of comments on your blog,” I thought, oh no!  Maybe I’d written something that I shouldn’t have.

Originally, this used to be a journal about the concerts and other performances I attended as a huge fan of a particular celebrity. It was just another personal blog, and I’m surprised to have so many people visiting here now.  I hear that some famous people have spread word about this blog on Twitter.  Honestly, I really want to apologize more than I want to thank them.

I’ve always been a terrible writer, so much so that my records, reports, and essays are always being corrected all the time, so I’m sure these entries are hard to read, with tons of grammatical mistakes.

Initially, I kept these records so that I can send an e-mail out to my friends.  I decided to put them here because I thought maybe it would be easier for my friends’ friends to read them too, if they were available in blog form.  I’m sure there are many points that are difficult to understand or didn’t come through, with just text alone and no pictures or anything.

Really, I’m plain surprised to receive such a large response, with so many comments from people from more locations, more professions, and more perspectives than I could even have imagined.  And I’m very happy that this blog has apparently led many people to know what is happening in the areas affected by the disaster, and to think even just a little bit about what each of us should and can do.

There are so many kind-hearted people out there, and reading the comments gave me so much courage.  It was like everyone put some nurturing medicine on my broken heart, and I thought all over again about how people are always saved in the end by other people.  Thank you very much.

I am not the kind of person who should be receiving all this praise.  But from now on, when I’m confronted by countless hardships or sadness, I think looking through these comments that you’ve left here will help me persevere.

Even now that I’ve come back from the disaster site, I still have the habit of checking the weather and temperature in Iwate when I see weather reports.  There is some time before I will be heading there again, and until then, I will work hard at my hospital in Tokyo.

Sometimes, I think of Rikuzentakata out of nowhere and look up at the sky.  I am reassured that we are all connected, and my heart is always close to everyone at the evacuation site.  I can see light at the far end of this long tunnel, and I feel we are certainly moving forward, step by step.

I will be on the night shift starting this evening.  Tomorrow will be a day off, so I will sit up straight and read every comment all over again.





Next entry: Over and over again.





Translated April 8.
Original entry in Japanese: こちらこそありがとうございます。