We spent all of February in complete bliss. Our time home in TN during Christmas filled up our hearts, and then Grammy eased us back into Japan in January. The weather has been warming up, and we have enjoyed every "family weekend", as Hannah calls it, where we three just hang out together and play games. When I felt the smaller quake on Wednesday March 9th, I got a very strong message in my body that things were not going to be ok. Thursday March 10th I refreshed the earthquake survival kit with fresh water, food, and flashlight. Friday morning March 11th I called Dee Dee (the other Nissan Mom) and asked her to walk with me. We talked about how irritated I was feeling, and how we both felt so vulnerable wondering when a big earthquake was going to happen, and I talked about my fear of taking showers. At 2pm I picked Hannah up from school. At 2:30pm I asked her if she would take a nap with me, so we could be awake when Adam got home at his usual very late Japanese hour. I took a quick shower, and was dressing for a nap..at 2:46pm the quake started. Hannah was next to the bed coloring, so I grabbed her, sat on the floor, and faced her toward me and cradled her head. The quake just kept going and going and getting stronger. The standup mirror came crashing down and hit my left shoulder, and her right elbow. She said "it broke my elbow!" When it finally stopped, I checked her elbow, and there was just a cut, and I forgot about my shoulder until I found the wound the next day. We carefully walked downstairs and saw the damage throughout the house. We got the earthquake backpack and headed to Dee Dee and Landon (Hannah's 4 yr old school mate) who live in same neighborhood. We all came outside with the other women of the neighborhood. A big aftershock came and we sat down in the street. The other women were screaming for us to move from behind Dee Dee's car that looked like it could roll out of drive way because it was moving so much. Everyone went to the park in our neighborhood to be in an open field. We continued to feel the aftershocks...which are still happening at this moment 6 days later..and could go on for 2 months. Dee Dee had a radio that was announcing in Japanese what was going on. The neighbor translated that we now needed to move to higher ground because of tsunami threat. The four of us got in Dee Dee's car and drove up to the Country Club. The electricity went out in our neighborhood when the quake happened, but the club had power and the TV going, and we were immediately bombarded with images of fires and raging water. We could not get a hold of our husbands until 5pm, because the phone lines were jammed up. Adam's co-worker offered a car ride to get him and Lance (Dee Dee's husband) home, because the trains were not running. They were in grid lock for 2 hours and then Adam told his Japanese friend that he needed to get home to "his" family, and he and Lance could walk to the nearest station and try to get a taxi. Thank goodness Adam had a flashlight because it very dark with no electricity at this point. They got to a station, and Adam heard a voice saying "Yokohama" in English. He went to the guy who was from the UK and found out he was going near our neighborhood, so the guy let Lance and Adam take the taxi with him and his Japanese companion. These two had been waiting in line for a taxi for 3 hours, and when Adam found them, it was their turn next! They were very crowded for 3 hours in the taxi, but Adam finally made it home shortly after 10pm. Around 6pm Dee Dee and I went back to our homes to get candles going, and put food in freezer. I was not able to check in with Adam again until about 9pm. Hannah and I put pillows on the floor in front of the staircase by the front door, and wrapped up in blankets. We watched Shrek on our portable dvd player that I happened to have charged up the day before. We ate fruit for dinner, and stayed calm. Our friends came by around 9:15pm to check on us and helped lift the heavy screen off the couch. We were very cold and tired, so we went to bed right after that. I took things off the wall above the bed, and left the standup mirror on the floor. It was so good to have Adam back home...if it was our time to die, I at least wanted us all three to be together.
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