Hundreds of the 19,000 people killed by the earthquake and tsunami that hit northeast Japan on March 11 last year remain unmourned, their bodies never claimed because there is no one left to notice they have gone.
However, one Buddhist monk has lovingly stored the ashes and bones of some of those whose names no one knows in the hope that one day they can be reunited with their families.
Every day for the last year, Ryushin Miyabe has offered prayers and lit incense for the souls in his care at Myokoin temple in Yamamoto, a small town on Japan’s tsunami-wrecked coast.
In late January he was finally able to hand over the remains of a five-year-old boy, known until then only as “No. 906,” when the child’s grandmother was identified through DNA tests.
The boy’s corpse had been cremated in June last year after coastguards found it floating in the Pacific, washed out to sea by the tsunami.
With the boy’s remains back with a family member, his spirit can pass into the next world, Miyabe said.
Buddhist tradition dictates that a body is cremated and the ashes are placed in an urn, along with the bones that remain.
The urn is placed in a family grave, which Japanese traditionally believe to be the gateway to the next world, one through which souls can return every year during the summer festival of Obon.
The grave must be cared for by surviving family, who in return, expect spiritual protection from their deceased relatives.
Nationwide, 500 bodies recovered after the tsunami have still not been identified and more than 3,000 of those who died have never been found.
Miyabe’s temple has only one small urn left.
Mortician Ruiko Sasahara prepared more than 300 often badly damaged bodies at makeshift morgues in tsunami-hit coastal towns, to allow relatives to bid their farewells.
As well as making funeral arrangements, morticians in Japan clean, dress and apply cosmetics to bodies in an effort to make them look as much like they did when they were alive as possible.
The practice, which is fading in bigger cities, but remains fairly common in rural areas, came to worldwide attention in 2009 when Departures won an Oscar for its depiction of an out of work cellist who becomes a mortician in small town Japan.
Many of the bodies that Sasahara was called upon to patch up were in bad condition.
However, she knew that families desperately needed to be able to say their goodbyes and even resorted to using clippings from her own hair to remake eyelashes and eyebrows.
Sasahara said the process of repair is vital to protect the dignity of the dead and to ease the pain of those left behind.
“Many of the bereaved blame themselves for failing to save their loved ones,” she said. “When they once again see the smile of the person they lost, I think many people can feel they have been forgiven.”
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