A Procter family has sent a care package to an Onagawa student who stayed with them last fall, including what may be the only surviving pictures of her mother.
Lynne Betts’ family hosted Yuri Suzuki, who was 13 when she came here as part of a student delegation. She lost her mother and grandmother in the March tsunami.
In April, North Shore resident Mary Nishio was in Onagawa working with relief efforts and encountered Suzuki by chance at a shelter housing 800 people.
She forwarded contact information to Betts, who recalls Suzuki had an older sister and her father worked at a nuclear power plant.
“With the language barrier it was hard to get a lot of depth,” she says. “But she was a smiley, entertaining, easy girl to have around. She was an easy house guest.”
She says Suzuki usually made a peace sign when having her picture taken — as she did in a photo Nishio took with her and another student who visited Nelson.
“She brought some paints and inks and tried to teach us how to do Japanese calligraphy, which was pretty challenging,” Betts says.
The visit was over barely after it started, she adds. The students arrived on a Saturday and left the following Thursday.
Although she’d heard all the students from the visit survived the tsunami, Betts didn’t know where Suzuki was until Nishio provided the address.
She mailed a parcel last week.
“Mary felt one thing they could use at the shelter, which is an auditorium, was small, battery-operated table lamps,” Betts says.
“So if they were doing homework or reading, they could have some light. We sent three of those and a wind-up flashlight and some candy.”
But perhaps most important are the photos: Suzuki brought little albums with her last fall for her hosts, showing her family and baseball team.
“We mailed them back to her, because I assume she’s lost those kinds of things,” Betts says. “These might be the only photos she has of the mother.”
(They had them scanned first, just in case the box gets lost.)
Because it may take a few weeks to arrive, they also put a card in the mail which should get there a little sooner, letting her know the package is on its way. Betts also sent an email to the address Nishio provided, but hasn’t heard back.
“If Yuri wanted to come visit, she certainly would be welcome, but I’m sure her father doesn’t want to let her out of his sight,” Betts says.
• The local Onagawa outreach group has booked a table at this week’s Saturday market.
“We want to tell those who visit the market that we can’t forget Onagawa and that the road to recovery is a long, long one,” says Kim Barker, a member of the group.
She says they will continue to sell paper crane pins and ask people to write messages on provided postcards. Photos of the writers will be glued on the back. One batch of postcards has already been sent to Japan.