\n<\/p>\n
It is called the drifting post, he explained, because the letters drift between heaven and earth. Set within a stretch of coastal woodland, in rural Japan, this post box receives letters written to the dead. Yuji Akagawa, a grandfather in his seventies, was the proprietor and key administrator.<\/p>\n
Article continues after advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYesterday was the tenth anniversary,\u201d he told me in March 2024, the first day we met, about the drifting post\u2019s founding.<\/p>\n Akagawa was smaller than me, I guessed less than five feet. He was wearing sandals with blue socks, a bowl haircut and a big smile, when I first saw him standing outside Mizusawa-Esashi Station in Iwate Prefecture, almost 500 kilometers north of Tokyo. Akagawa lived some of the time nearby, with his wife and their fifteen-year-old dog. Snowy peaks were visible in the distance, providing a contrast to the flat urban landscapes through which the car moved smoothly. This area felt more remote than most places I have been.<\/p>\n The spot of land by Rikuzentakata, a coastal town an hour\u2019s drive away, was supposed to be Akagawa\u2019s refuge. He\u2019d longed for an isolated life in the countryside, far from the cities where he had earned his money. He was born in Yokohama, in Tokyo Bay, and built his career in the capital. It is unusual for Japanese people to move to rural communities without direct connections, he told me, and he was worried he would be excluded as a stranger. But at the same time, though he could not explain why, he had always felt a deep and yearning longing for solitude. After he and his wife first relocated to Mizusawa-Esashi, he decided he needed a retreat somewhere even more remote. He named his second home, in Rikuzentakata, Mori no Koya, or \u201cthe small house in the forest.\u201d<\/p>\n When crisis hits, the factors that result in the difference between a life extinguished and one with decades more on this earth can be arbitrary and yet so permanent.<\/p>\n Akagawa retired two years before the Great East Japan Earthquake struck in 2011. He was in his second home, alone, when its violent shaking decreed that suddenly \u201ceverything was foreign.\u201d He walked outside, only to realize that his small house\u2014his refuge\u2014was swaying from side to side. \u201cI gave up the house in my heart. I decided to accept that the house would be destroyed.\u201d He waited a while longer, and the building was still standing. Going inside, he saw splintered objects on the ground and considered vacuuming them up, but the electricity had been cut. His wife sent a worried message saying she, at least, was fine, but he did not immediately reply. Later, he would regret that, after the communications networks were completely cut off.<\/p>\n His home\u2019s isolation meant Akagawa was not immediately aware of the tsunami risk that followed the earthquake. An older woman arrived through the trees and invited him to move over to her house, so he would not be alone any more.<\/p>\n There, passing fishermen began referring to the frightening state of the nearby sea.<\/p>\n Rikuzentakata had twenty-four thousand residents when the earthquake and tsunami struck. The waves that hit it reached thirteen meters\u2014higher than many three-story buildings. \u201cIt\u2019s not a town, not anymore,\u201d emphasized an Al Jazeera reporter in the following days. \u201cThe everyday permanent fixtures of life have just gone in an instant, along with countless lives,\u201d the reporter said, standing in front of brown debris, which included shattered walls and what appeared to be a roof attached to the top floor of a house. \u201cThe disaster didn\u2019t discriminate\u2026An iron railway bridge, twisted and broken like wire. Cars tossed and smashed.\u201d The final death toll there was around 1,700.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n A letter writer says this year will mark the thirteenth anniversary of the death of the person they are writing to, and they have begun to think of them again. They have not accepted the death yet and still reflect on the memories the two created together, including driving without any purpose, watching baseball games and playing soccer.<\/i><\/p>\n They wonder if it was the addressee\u2019s serious side that made them try to complete their work, even after the tsunami warning was issued. The writer attempted to phone them the next day, before finding out about the body\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n The day of the disaster is known as \u201c3.11\u201d in Japan, or San-ten-ichi-ichi. At 2:46 PM local time, on March 11, 2011, there was a magnitude 9.1 earthquake, the most powerful the country had experienced since records began. Shaking lasted around six minutes. The subsequent tsunami, which hit Japan at 3.20 PM, peaked at a height above 130 feet.<\/p>\n Survivors described watching buildings being consumed by the wave. A cloud of dust and debris rose above it, before that, too, was swallowed by the water. The wave broke through sea walls which were supposed to protect people. It destroyed everything in its path: roads, properties, family photo albums, laptops, phones, shrines to ancestors. Around 2,000 kilometers of Japan\u2019s coastline was affected, and more than 400 square kilometers of land covered in water. The reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant were flooded, triggering a nuclear disaster which forced more than 150,000 people to evacuate. Some areas would remain deserted for over a decade, because of the risk of radiation poisoning.<\/p>\n More than twenty-two thousand people were declared dead or missing in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, according to government figures. Over one million homes were fully or partially destroyed.<\/p>\n Some survivors described an uncannily quiet moment, an other-worldly pause, when the sea drew back from the shore before the big wave came. The sound of water, which normally underlay everyday life, had been momentarily eradicated. In videos showing the tsunami\u2019s arrival there is a strange slowness, which can make it difficult to imagine the terror and jeopardy of impact. Victims were not only drowned, they were hit by trees, cars, pieces of buildings.<\/p>\n They were submerged, sucked under, tossed and propelled in divergent directions, according to which currents they fell to the mercy of. Some people remember seeing fires starting above the water, with no idea how this clash of elements was even scientifically possible. Despite any flames, the weather was bitterly cold. Survivors who fled to higher ground struggled as a result of the temperature, with some dying later on from exposure.<\/p>\n When crisis hits, the factors that result in the difference between a life extinguished and one with decades more on this earth can be arbitrary and yet so permanent. Like in a bombing, a tsunami or earthquake also makes the private suddenly, almost indecently, public. The insides of people\u2019s homes were exposed, personal belongings floating in the water or spread out on the ground as it receded. Prized possessions were laid bare.<\/p>\n It took time to figure out who had lived and who had died. One sixty-year-old from Fukushima was discovered two days later, ten miles out at sea, floating on a piece of the roof of his home. His wife, who had been with him when the tsunami struck, was still missing. It would be months or even years before some bodies were recovered. Thousands never were.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n A writer pens many letters over many months. She writes about a trip to an island in southern Japan where she danced to live music; it was so hot that she had to use an air conditioner and fan from early morning, for the first time in her life. She details the weather getting cooler and a cloudy sky. She notes the passing of their fifty-fourth wedding anniversary, and the transition into a new year: her seventh being alone. She says she knows he is most likely with both of their parents now. She does not want to worry him but she hopes to join them as soon as possible.<\/i><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Three days after the tsunami, when Akagawa decided to return home to his wife, he found that the road which led to her no longer existed. He began driving anyway, though he struggled to surmount the gareki<\/i>\u2014the rubble or debris left by the tsunami. Maps had become useless; streets and landmarks washed away or hidden. At one point, he climbed a hill to scrutinise the area around him. \u201cThe city was all black, there was something moving like ants: that was the self-defense army\u2019s helmets,\u201d he realized.<\/p>\n Akagawa passed by lines of his countryfolk, now homeless, and he began to cry. He drove and drove, making it to the outskirts of the town where his wife lived. His phone began to buzz and ping with messages from worried friends and relatives\u2014it was the first time he\u2019d had phone reception in three days. When Akagawa finally saw his wife again, she was convinced he was a ghost. She slapped his legs, checking for a solid body and some proof that he was real.<\/p>\n Over the coming months, Akagawa experimented with ways to help the people affected. He negotiated with the owner of a hot spring, and began to drive the so-called \u201cevacuees\u201d to the spring so they could bathe. He realized that people living in the new evacuation centers\u2014which were noisy, with little privacy\u2014needed somewhere to relax. \u201cThe places were so crowded that you couldn\u2019t take steps. People didn\u2019t laugh at all, they just had torment in their hearts.\u201d He invited them to visit his second home \u201cto refresh their mind.\u201d<\/p>\n When the initial shock wore off, \u201ca certain period later,\u201d he said, \u201cpeople\u2019s worlds changed. People began to say \u2018please listen to me,\u2019 they wanted to talk about the emotions that had been kept inside them since the earthquake. I tried. They talked about people who died or were still missing, the times when the bodies were found, that kind of thing. I asked: \u2018Why are you talking to me, we only met today.’\u201d For some reason, Akagawa realized, that made it easier. Talking to those close to them was hard; often the other person would shut conversation down\u2014they too had problems. \u201cI listened to people speaking for one and a half years,\u201d Akagawa said. \u201cThe people who talked felt release, but I was tortured by listening.\u201d<\/p>\n It was Akagawa\u2019s struggle with how to cope with this responsibility that sparked the creation of the \u201cdrifting post.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n A writer notes that September is almost over, though the late summer heat continues. The passage of time has been a form of medicine for them, though they continue to write these missives and believe each one is being received. The writer also asks the letter recipient to thank Mr. Akagawa for providing delicious food during their visit.<\/i><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n The next time I met Akagawa, it was in Rikuzentakata itself. Around us were rolling hills flecked with houses, dappled by the sun shining through the clouds. Old tourist guides reference pine trees\u2014there reportedly used to be seventy thousand of them along two kilometers of coast. Just one survived the tsunami: a two- hundred-year-old that locals call the \u201cmiracle pine.\u201d The road we were driving along had only reopened a year before: a huge concrete wall was first erected on the right, protecting it from the sea and blocking the water from our sight. It reminded Akagawa of Fuch\u016b, one of Japan\u2019s largest prisons, he said. Along our left flank was a line of bamboos.<\/p>\n The road wound upwards, past a sloping graveyard and cedar trees. We passed another hamlet of houses, and I started to spot various signs pointing towards the drifting post. Through a final flurry of trees, it at last became visible. There was a rectangular yellow post box\u2014the \u201creal\u201d one, Akagawa said, and another upstanding coral-colored \u201cornamental\u201d one. There were bicycles and benches, a big wooden house, and more trees all around. Further back from the structure of the main building was a DIY room\u2014\u201dmy treasure box,\u201d Akagawa smiled.<\/p>\n At the very end of the garden was another room, like a cabin, built by Akagawa himself. It housed sixteen binders of letters, six chairs and a desk, where people could relax or take a moment if they were \u201ctrying not to cry.\u201d Sometimes multiple visitors turned up at once. Occasionally, they made friends with each other. Unless writers specified that they wanted their letter to remain private, Akagawa would place them in his binders so they could be read by other mourners; it might help them assemble their own thoughts. The writers were willing for their letters to be made public, he said: this made the mourning more collective. \u201cFinding out that you are not alone is the most important thing, finding out that you are not the only person who is grieving.\u201d As I leafed through the binders, the wind outside was so strong that it sounded like heavy rain.<\/p>\n In front of the cabin was a low wooden chair, where visitors could lean back and look at the sky; it was bright that day, despite the wind. \u201cPeople think the dead person is in the sky above this building,\u201d Akagawa explained. He built the room on naturally elevated ground, to honor the belief that the higher you are, the closer you are to heaven.<\/p>\n \u201cI read all the letters,\u201d he added, talking through his role. \u201cPeople send the letters to be read.\u201d There are common threads between them. \u201cMany people assume that heaven exists, they ask \u2018How\u2019s the life there?\u2019 And they say they know it\u2019s hard, but they\u2019d like to get a reply.\u201d Some people came in person to deliver letters; others simply wrote \u201cThe Drifting Post, Iwate Prefecture\u201d on the envelope. \u201cThe first six months were the most torturous because all the letters were so sad,\u201d Akagawa remembered. \u201cI saw the aftermath of 3.11 so I could clearly imagine the situation, I thought about quitting many times.\u201d<\/p>\n Like in a bombing, a tsunami or earthquake also makes the private suddenly, almost indecently, public.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n A writer misses the disappeared person who loved them like a little sister. They have moved and say they are happy, but on the eleventh day of each month they face the direction of the city where the pair spent so much time together and speak to them, their words projected into the air.<\/i><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n In the summer, Akagawa lives full time at his second home in the woods by Rikuzentakata, the drifting post visible from his windows. During winter, when snow is thick on the ground, Akagawa stays with his wife and visits the post box just once every ten days. She has little to do with his drifting post activities, he told me. \u201cWe have our own ways so we don\u2019t interfere so much with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Akagawa imagined that the ten-year anniversary of the tsunami would mark \u201ca kind of separation\u201d from this work for him. But the letters never stopped arriving. Each year, the frequency increases around March 11. Letters or cards also turn up on dead people\u2019s birthdays; birthday flowers have even been delivered. Some of the people writing have no connection to 3.11 at all; they lost loved ones due to health problems or other causes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe saddest letters are from mothers who lost their children, those are the hardest for me to read,\u201d Akagawa said, as we sat in his cosy cabin, surrounded by artwork and photos given to him by supporters. \u201cAs time passed, the people who write these letters became so important to me, I realized that I could communicate with people at the lowest point in their life.\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes, people who write to the drifting post include an extra letter for him. Only then will he reply. (\u201cPeople in Tohoku are very patient, but I think having a place where they can express their suffering and sadness reassures them a lot,\u201d read one letter addressed to Akagawa, from a person who had learned about the drifting post from a newspaper. \u201cMy feelings were moved by you,\u201d wrote another, sent from Sasebo city in southwest Japan.)<\/p>\n Akagawa has begun to talk about quitting, though he shook his head even as he expressed his desire to. \u201cI communicated with the people who wrote the letters and they haven\u2019t allowed me to quit,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to be released from this activity but I think it was so good starting this drifting post. I received a great gift from people who are grieving a lot. I\u2019ve realized the relationship between people is much more than family connection. A relationship can exist when people are at the bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n Once a year, Akagawa takes the letters to a nearby Buddhist temple, where a monk prays over them. Akagawa taught me about the Buddhist term kuyou<\/i>, a ceremony held \u201cto pray for people after death, to send the people to heaven.\u201d The letters, he explained, now go through a similar process, transmitted \u201cto heaven by the power of Buddha.\u201d Following the annual ceremony, he packs them up and brings them home again, to his cabin in the woods.<\/p>\n Akagawa has never written a letter himself, \u201cbut I asked my wife to write to the drifting post after my death,\u201d he told me. \u201cThe letter will go to heaven, so it doesn\u2019t matter that I\u2019m not there to read it in person. One of my consolations is, if I die, people will write these letters to me.\u201d<\/p>\n _______________________________<\/p>\n <\/p>\n