Reece Simmonds > Recent Status Updates

'Every day, I think about my children and how each of them would be, if they were here. Today would be a birthday, for example. Or this month one of them would have been taking an entrance examination. In my heart, the children are still growing up. But I can't see them growing up’

The latest chapter I read was titled ‘Ghosts’ and as can be guessed, this started to introduce some of the ghost sightings and possessions that had occurred after the disaster with an introduction into the nations spirituality. There is lots I want to talk about just with this chapter alone but I don’t really have the word count. Instead, in the comments, I will condense some of the stories

This book is really engaging and incredibly well written but at the same time, I’m struggling to read more than a chapter or 2 at night

Part 1 complete. The school talked about had 108 students. Of the 78 who were there when the tsunami hit, 74 and 10 out of the 11 teachers had died.

This going to be a difficult read. So far, I have read the epilogue and chapter 1 and 2 of Part 1. We have accounts of two mothers who lost their children in the disaster. Whether I am able to finish this book, I don’t know.

It’s written incredibly well though. The author was in Japan at the time and interviews the families. The accounts are simply harrowing.

7 July 1913 ~ “Life is merely terrible; I feel it as few others do. Often - and in my inmost self perhaps all the time - I doubt whether I am a human being.”

Only read a few letters tonight. A few pretty gut wrenching pages! I really do feel for Franz a lot - if only he knew how much his work, and him, is loved today!

Can’t pick just the one quote so 2/3 will do :’)

7 June 1913 ~ “I no longer even consider the possibility of a letter having gone astray. Letters that have been written do not go astray, the only letters that go astray are those that have never been written. But why? Why torment me so unnecessarily?”

13 May 1913 ~ You don’t know, Felice, you don’t know what it is that imprisons me and makes me the unhappiest of men, in spite of seeming to be very close to you - you, my sole purpose on this earth. Oh god, I wish you were not on this earth, but entirely within me, or rather that I were not on this earth but entirely within you; I feel there is one too many of us; the separation into two people is unbearable.

13 April 1913 ~ “I am not well; I could have built the Pyramids with the effort it takes me to cling on to life and reason.”

2 April 1913 ~ “I, dearest, become estranged? I who die of longing for you here at my desk? While washing my hands outside in the dark passage today, I was somehow so overcome by the thought of you that I had to step across to the window to seek some comfort, if only from the grey sky. This is how I live.”

2 April 1913 ~ “I, dearest, become estranged? I who die of longing for you here at my desk? While washing my hands outside in the dark passage today, I was somehow so overcome by the thought of you that I had to step across to the window to seek some comfort, if only from the grey sky. This is how I live.”

From 14 to 15 March 1912 [1913] ~ “I sleep little, fitfully, and badly; I don’t take much exercise, am utterly dissatisfied with myself, all of which made me collapse quite helplessly into the armchair.”

18th/19th February 1913 - “When I look into myself I see so much that is obscure and still in flux that I can not even properly explain or fully accept the dislike I feel for myself.”

‘My way’ by Sinatra finishing in my headphones as the basketball game and chapter 183 ends.

Absolute cinema. :’)

The slump is well and truly over so I’m going to try and start reading a few letters in bed every night!

9th/10th February 1913 - “There are times, dearest, when I am convinced I am unfit for any human relationship.”

“Maybe falling in love is about wanting to experience the joy of being seen” a great ending to chapter 164 🙂‍↕️

chapter 136 has my heart.