A mother’s sad task:
telling boy his
dad is dead

Hiroshi Makizawa was among
8 victims found in the
Ehime Maru wreckage

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By Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.com

Mika Makizawa said she and her mother-in-law had the same reaction when they learned that Makizawa's husband was among the eight bodies recovered in the Ehime Maru wreckage.

"Yokatta!" (good) was my first reaction," the widow said through an interpreter. "I was happy because I'd been waiting and waiting. Part of us felt maybe he wouldn't be found."

She called Japan to inform her mother-in-law that the body of her only child, Hiroshi Makizawa, a 37-year-old teacher of the Uwajima Fisheries High School, had been identified on Friday. "Yokatta!" was her response, Makizawa said.

But then the phone was handed over to Makizawa's 4-year-old son, Yuuki.

"Daddy was there," she told him. "We found him."

"Oh, let me talk to him!" Yuuki said, according to his mother.

The 37-year-old housewife had not yet broken the news to her son, who thought his father was still on a fishery boat trip.

Makizawa said she thought Yuuki was aware of his father's death to some degree because everyone around him had been talking about it.

"When I return to Japan there are so many matters I have to take care of," she said yesterday. "One of the hardest things is to tell my child, let him know what exactly happened to Daddy. I'm worried about my son's reaction."

Hiroshi Makizawa was among nine men and boys who died when the Ehime Maru sank after being struck by the nuclear submarine USS Greeneville on Feb. 9. The search resumed today for Takeshi Mizuguchi, 17, the only one who has not been found.

Mika Makizawa's hopes that her husband would be found were raised last week when his wedding ring was found by divers searching the wreckage about a mile south of Honolulu Airport. "I had never given up, but it has been a long wait," Makizawa said.

But, after the initial relief of knowing he was found, the grief returned.

"His death became a reality, and so I am very sad," Makizawa said.

Hiroshi Makizawa had moved from Nagasaki to Uwajima 13 years ago to teach. Six years ago, he met Mika, an Uwajima native, and they married. He had a house built for them, where they lived with their son and his mother. He was the ideal husband, who helped with household chores and caring for their son, she said.

Now, Makizawa will bring her husband's ashes home. Although the little toy car he bought in Hawaii for their son has yet to be found, Makizawa will go home wearing his ring.