This is the fifth and final installment of a series in which Yomiuri Shimbun reporters share an intimate look at families who were directly affected by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
It is just after 5 a.m. Having washed some rice, Takatoshi Suzuki, a 54-year-old native of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, turns on the rice cooker and says a short prayer in front of the Buddhist altar before quietly leaving his house. He gets in his truck and drives to the port on this clear day in late February.
Right-eye flounder is in season now. In early summer it will be olive flounder and cod. A fisherman by trade, Takatoshi has been running cruises for the last few years, guiding customers to the best fishing spots. He can see the satisfaction of a big catch on the faces of his customers.
"Please come again," he tells them.
In March 2013, two years after the Great East Japan Earthquake, I heard about someone living in a temporary housing complex who planned to resume fishing for Japanese sand lance, a famous springtime delicacy.
I found him clumsily folding laundry in a tiny temporary housing unit, while his 12-year-old daughter, Yuzuha, who was 4 at the time, climbed all over him seeking attention. "I can't keep up with it all," he said.
The tsunami took his wife, Tomoko, and he had been feeding and caring for his three children all on his own since then. Takatoshi could not hide his exhaustion.
Yet when I asked him about fishing, his words suddenly gained force. "Once the New Year comes, I get excited. I'll never forget the joy of catching a fish. It keeps me fishing," he said.
The next spring in 2014, I accompanied him fishing for Japanese sand lance. We left the port while it was still dark on his 8-ton fishing boat, the Kanemiya Maru. It took about three hours to reach the fishing grounds.
Japanese sand lance are caught with "scoop nets." When seagulls or fur seals are spotted chasing sand lance near the surface of the sea, the engine is put to full throttle to scoop up the school with the net.
Good eyes and plenty of experience are key to a successful catch. Takatoshi stared at the sea and sky like he was challenging them, which made me hesitant to approach him.
When we returned to port, he told me: "The sea is what I really need to survive here. Tsunami are scary, and in a storm you get tossed about like leaves on a tree. Even so, I could never hate it."
But the fish are not there to be caught. According to the Miyagi prefectural government and other sources, the Japanese sand lance catch the last few years has been a tenth or less of what it was before the earthquake. Some think the sandy areas where the fish hatch were disturbed by the tsunami. Global warming is also seen as a factor.
Oyster farming, another source of income, has seen orders plunge due to the coronavirus pandemic. So now Takatoshi is putting his fishing nets aside and pinning his hopes on the fishing cruises.
-- Family photo
"I'd forgotten about these pictures," said Tomohiro, the family's 21-year-old son, while looking at a photo album in the attic of their home. The album had been saved from their previous house, which was swept away by the tsunami.
The photo is dated Aug. 16, 2010. In it, Tomoko smiles as she hugs Yuzuha. The older sister, Nao, who was an elementary school student then and is 19 years old now, and Takatoshi are there too. This is the last photo of the five of them together, taken on a trip to Nara Prefecture the year before the earthquake.
There is also a photo of Tomoko holding Tomohiro as a baby. "She really loved us, didn't she," Tomohiro said.
He used the photo as his profile picture on Instagram.
"Time has stopped for the last 10 years," Takatoshi said. He does not think the feelings of loss and sadness will fade. "I'm always being reminded that my family isn't together," he said. He hasn't used a camera much since the earthquake.
But his children have grown up. Next spring, Tomohiro will graduate from university and Nao from junior college. Yuzuha, who is starting junior high school this spring, loves Korean boy bands and is studying Korean.
Happily, the fishing cruise business has created a virtuous circle in which customers tell other people about the experience, who then become customers themselves, enabling Takatoshi to support the family. After all, there is no option but to live by the sea.
"I have to keep at it for another 10 years," he said. This thought keeps Takatoshi going.
-- Suzuki family profile
Takatoshi Suzuki, a fisherman in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, lost his wife Tomoko, then 38; his father Kanetoshi, then 79; and his mother Ritsuko, then 79, in the tsunami. He now lives in a home built on higher ground with his son Tomohiro and second-oldest daughter Yuzuha. His oldest daughter Nao lives in Sendai.
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