Prepare for your heart to flutter, not in a pleasant way.
This once-in-a-lifetime storyline is entirely appropriate because it is about courage and decision-making.
In recent days, this newspaper has been in the midst of a thorny dialogue over whether the previous edition of the Culver City Redevelopment Agency was morally correct in deferring to community wishes in refusing to approve state-ordered affordable housing.
Did the Agency members abandon their responsibilities as elected community officials by saying, “As you wish, fellow residents”?
This call was cotton candy compared to real-life decision-making.
Unless you are a liberal, thank your creator this morning that you were not born Futoshi Toba.
As related last Saturday by America’s No. 1-ranked and best-written newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Toba is the 46-year-old Mayor of the seaside Japanese community of Rikuzentakata, population 23,000, B.E.T., Before the Earthquake and Tsunami, on March 11.
At 2:40 on the Doomsday afternoon, Mr. Toba called his 39-year-old wife Kumi. He suggested they take their sons, Taiga, 12, and Kanato, 10, to a favorite barbecue restaurant for dinner. She said she would email him her answer later.
Six minutes afterward, the Japanese world effectively ended with the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that threw 40-foot waves on all in its path, flooding and flatting the city.
Mr. Toba was faced with a dilemma that will haunt him into his grave, and possibly hasten his end.
Which Way Should He Go?
He was at City Hall downtown. His wife, as usual, was at their home, near sea level. Their children were at a hilltop school.
As the Mayor and as a father, he had a crushing choice to make:
As busses and cars were being tossed about like toys, the trapped people were screaming for help and the rushing waters were burying buildings and frantic people, where did his main moral duty lie:
With family or with community?
Along with dozens of residents, his split-second instinct was to dash up the stairs to the roof of the 4-story City Hall.
We are told that he knew his sons successfully escaped with their lives.
But what about his beautiful wife Kumi?
“When I looked back in the direction of my home,” Mr. Toba told the Journal, “I just saw all the houses being crushed. The sound of the wood splintering was so loud.”
What was his primary moral duty, to visibly shepherd his community through the epic disaster or to brace the odds and speed home for his wife?
Dear Reader, what would you have done?
(To be continued)
