“I’ve been on high alert since Friday,” says Judi Turner.
The Bowling Green mother is waiting anxiously for another call from her
son, Dave DeLong, a Toledo St. John’s Jesuit High School graduate who
has been living in Japan since 2004.
Her television is never turned off, and she’s fielding frequent, concerned inquiries from friends and
relatives.
Turner, who was widowed in 2001, had to wait hours before finding out
the fate of her son by her first husband — and that of her tiny
grandson, born just two weeks to the day before the earthquake.
“They live 50 miles away from Tokyo. Dave was working 50 miles away from home.”
Meanwhile, DeLong’s Japanese wife, Mai, had taken the baby to his first post-birth appointment with the
pediatrician.
“Japan has been having so many (minor) earthquakes. They had one
Wednesday,” Turner says. So when a Bowling Green friend, Meg Carek,
called to ask if Turner’s son in Japan was OK, Turner thought that’s the
earthquake to which Carek was referring.
She switched on the television and, with horror, realized an 8.9 magnitude quake had just struck.
“I started calling (her son). I couldn’t get through. I was just
frantic! You’re so used to being able to get what you want, when you
want.”
Finally, “in a stroke of God, I was able to get hold of Mai one time by cell phone.”
Mai, the infant, and Mai’s mother, who had come to stay with them
following the baby’s birth, were safe in their cold, dark house. “They
only had two candles,” which ironically had been sent by Turner as a
present.
“She had just made it home from the doctor’s office when the quake hit.”
No one knew at that point where Turner’s son was. The only thing Mai
could tell her mother-in-law was that DeLong “was running home.”just
struck.
“I started calling (her son). I couldn’t get through. I was just
frantic! You’re so used to being able to get what you want, when you
want.”
Finally, “in a stroke of God, I was able to get hold of Mai one time by cell phone.”
Mai, the infant, and Mai’s mother, who had come to stay with them
following the baby’s birth, were safe in their cold, dark apartment.
“They only had two candles,” which ironically had been sent by Turner as
a present.
“She had just made it home from the doctor’s office when the quake hit.”
No one knew at that point where Turner’s son was. The only thing Mai
could tell her mother-in-law was that DeLong “was running home.”
From 50 miles away?
When the quake hit, DeLong’s building was evacuated, with employees herded to a nearby park.
His only instinct was to get home to his wife and son.
“He walked and ran about 25 miles” until he was able to find a train, headed away from Tokyo, that was
still running.
The train wasn’t able to get all the way into the town where he lives,
though. So DeLong started walking again until, finally, his wife was
able to pick him up by car.
It took him over seven hours to make the 50-mile trip home.
The latest Turner has been able to find out from her son is that they are experiencing rolling blackouts.

“My concern now is the radioactivity! But they keep assuring me they are
safe. I’ve been waiting for a phone call” this morning, “but there’s no
way to get through.”
Turner was supposed to travel to Japan herself in 10 days.
“I have a ticket to go over on March 24 to see my grandson!”
Now, she has no idea what to do.
“I’ve been trying to say (to her son) ‘Come!’” back to the United States instead, “especially with the
radiation.”
Until now, life in Japan for DeLong has been nearly idyllic.
Turner’s son was introduced to Japan during a language class in his
freshman year at Xavier University in Cincinnati “and he kind of fell in
love with the culture.”
DeLong spent his senior year of college as a foreign exchange student at
Sofia University in Tokyo, and it was there that he met and fell in
love with Mai.
He stayed on following graduation.
That separation has never been harder for Turner than in the last three days.
“I’ve been crying all the time,” as she sees what the Japanese people
are enduring. “Those poor people; the devastation is so awful!”
Thinking of her own daughter-in-law, she adds, “can you imagine the
women who were in labor or in the hospital with new babies when the
earthquake happened?”
Through the long weekend she has been lucky to have the solid support of
her husband, Bowling Green native Larry Turner, whom she married in
2004, and finds “overwhelming and wonderful the outpouring” of their
friends asking if her son is OK, and how she is doing.