That triangle, powerful

Kanno-san sat down on the cushion on the tatami mats by himself, a late-comer to our mobile cafe. I offered him kohi, or coffee, and when I brought it to him he started speaking to me in Japanese. My new friend Andy, an American Japanese who grew up here but has lived in Chicago for the last six years, rescued the moment for us with his perfect Japanese. We three entered a triangle of emotion as Kanno-san recounted his story of the tsunami.

I listened for long moments till Andy translated chunk by chunk of Kanno-san’s remembrance of the giant wave that swept over his town of Kesennuma. Kanno-san and 300 others gathered on the roof of a community center, high enough up to be safe from the tsunami. They were stuck there for two days. Fires from the ships laden with oil and propane tanks raged throughout the town for ten days after that, a scene he said he’d imagined only in movies, an “ocean of fire” that looked like hell.

 

Heaviness. Darkness. Hopelessness, frustration, anger, rage. His weathered, red face and watery eyes told of pain and inner torture that only God and the four walls of his temporary dwelling know. I needn’t know Japanese to understand the weight dragging this man’s soul down.

Andy faithfully translated this man’s story for me, and I could barely receive each bit without breaking down. Caught in a moment of sight of something I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear, a man’s dignity and life shaken and swept out from under him. I was uncertain that I could stay in our little triangle without breaking out into a deep weeping. It is risky to live unguarded, to be willing to feel what He feels, what ones like Kanno-san experience; it is risky but I do not want to stay sheltered and unacquainted.

A doorway of hope, do you see one ahead of you at all, Kanno-san, a doorway of hope for your future? No, things are moving slowly in this prefecture, he said. He’s been randomly placed alone in temporary housing, away from neighbors and friends. If he were younger maybe he could get a loan and rebuld a home but the banks are reticent to loan to older people like him. No idea how long he’ll be in temporary housing, up here on this hill, a long walk from town and access to “real” life and resources he needs. The four walls feel like a prison. Some never leave, all day, all night, especially the older people. Depression digs deep. He wants to forget and move on but his dreams at night remind him, take him back. The TV news does too.

Oh, what only God and the four walls he lives within know and see and feel!

Kanno-san needs to share his story, he said. Many keep their stories and the way they feel stored up inside till it eats them up, he said. He, however, knows he needs to talk and that to this his freedom is linked. He shared and shared. I kept hearing that recognizable word “tsunami”, and it was clear he was processing that event over and over, around and around in purpose-filled circles.

He became lighter and lighter, though, as did the space in the midst of our triangle, as each word spilling out took weight off his shoulders. He even laughed, eventually, and joked with us, and he shared about how good it was to talk about this with someone (it’s been a long time). Our hour together was of visible and vocalized effect.

Oh, the power of empathy and of listening ears for Kanno-san and his immediate reality! Remember this, Wendy. Remember the effect of listening to another’s story, of absorbing the pain and the joy of it and lifting it to Jesus to bear.

Advertisement