Japan

March 5, 2011:

The first time I set foot in Japan was also the first time Mike and I had ever left our kids and taken a trip with just the two of us. We were arriving at Kansai Airport for our home-finding trip, prior to our final move to Japan at the end of the month. Not exactly a second honeymoon, but exciting, nevertheless. I wasn't anxious to leave my kids. If anything, leaving them was what made me anxious, but they were in good hands, and once we were on our way, I began to enjoy myself. We called my parents back home to check in on things every day, and the kids rarely had any interest in talking to us, so, although my ego suffered a bit, I was glad they were doing well.

It was a busy and overwhelming week. We visited many lovely houses, and a few not-so-lovely ones. We ate some delicious Japanese food, and some not-so-delicious Japanese food. We met many excellent people, and no not-so-excellent people. We had fun being able to work out together in the hotel exercise room - something that any couple with young kids knows doesn't happen often. I even found a horse to ride - of sorts. A mechanical horse in the hotel gym. All in all, it was a fine week, and I was looking forward to our move.

March 11th. My birthday. We spent the morning revisiting the houses we were most interested in, made our decision, and finalized the details the needed to be finalized. We would be leaving the next day. At about 2:46 in the afternoon we were driving to Mike's work site to take a tour and meet up with some of his co-workers for dinner. When we arrived, we heard there had been a fairly significant tremor. This was Japan, though, and the people are used to tremors. I heard the tsunami warning sirens, and wondered if we should be concerned about our plans to go to the harbor for dinner that night. No one seemed worried, though, and our dinner plans went forward uninterrupted. We had no problems and enjoyed our meal and the company. No one realized the extent of the disaster until later. Devastating, destructive, catastrophic, tragic. These words are hardly powerful enough to describe the horror of what struck Japan on March 11th.

I have a dear friend from college who was born on September 11th. Every year on that day I think of her, and think of how we used to celebrate her birthday in college, happy and carefree, with no way to imagine how in a few short years the innocence of that day would be stripped away forever. I feel that my birthday has now suffered a similar fate. I will still celebrate in the years to come, but that celebration will always be tinged with sadness, as we all remember Japan.