Disaster in Japan

Everything changed with the Japan earthquake and tsunami.

I found out the morning after. I was still in bed trying to wake up on Friday morning. Not yet started on the process of dragging my ass to the office. I was hitting the snooze button repeatedly. At some point I just let the clock radio play--it's set to a Los Angeles R&B station since the antenna on it is limited in what it can pick up--and between songs the dj sent his love out to all in Japan and Hawaii. That's odd, I thought. I got up to turn a television on.

My family: IN JAPAN AND HAWAII.
Family living anywhere else in the world: Me and my mother in California. And cousin away at college.

Ever since that morning our lives are filled with worry. Sadness.

I looked at my phone. Several friends had already sent me messages of deep concern. I tried texting an aunt in Hawaii. It was at least an hour before I got a response. They were still on edge but the worst of the tsunami had passed them. It got wet, but the family in Hawaii was alright.

I knew things would be insane at the office. The jump we tried to get on the workload the day before? We'd have to throw that out and work from scratch. The work we do just got many times more important. I work in news media and have not lived without the most horrific information and images ever since that day. We are constantly streaming NHK and looking at feeds. (Obviously this continues at home. There is no end.) On top of that, I field questions from the public. Many of them are from people desperately trying to find family in Japan. Still; more than a week after the event. Or they are worried about the radiation. Or, they can't bring themselves to say it, they are worried their loved ones are among those in the rubble of the hardest hit areas. I have faces and names to connect to the news and I understand their fears. I invest a lot of time [that I don't have] in responding to them. I have resources and information but most of the time they simply want someone to hold their hand through this.

It was awhile before I found out what was happening to my family in Japan. The first few days were the worst. Phones were completely down. I was watching the Japanese American community come together again. I received messages of support from unlikely places. People who didn't know me very well asked. A guy I only know through Flickr sent me a kind message. And it helped. And I was asking everyone from coworkers and friends to the checkout people at Japanese markets. Some were fortunate, but not all. People are grateful when someone asks. That weekend I was more busy socially than ever and I didn't realize until later--my friends were trying to keep me occupied and away from televisions and the internet. They knew my useless fretting was going to kill me. I can't even express how grateful I am to have these people in my life. The friends that continue to ask because even though we've located all family members, some live in affected areas and are still in danger. The story is still unfolding. Every day has been a struggle to balance the time I spend trying to get useful information to the people who need it and stepping away from it for a moment and not feel guilty for doing so.

On an especially bad day at work I received a valuable word of encouragement from my friend Kiyoshi...


Gambatte.

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What you can do: Donate to UNICEF for Japan, keep Japan in your thoughts, and don't be an asshole.