(VNF) - 94-year-old Nguyen Thi Xuan is among the few surviving widows of Japanese soldiers who were shipped home in the aftermath of World War II, many never to see their Vietnamese families again.

Japan's Emperor Akihito had met some of the widows and their descendants, including her, during his visit to Vietnam.

"This is my husband," said Ms. Xuan, holding up a pillow wrapped in a Vietnamese flag, with a Japanese army shirt pushed inside. She sleeps with it every night.

Nguyen Thi Xuan, 94, Vietnamese wife of a former Japanese soldier, holding a framed portrait of her Japanese husband.

"He spoke really good Vietnamese and often whispered Vietnamese songs," she says of her husband, eyes twinkling.

They married in 1945, after Japan's defeat, when about 100,000 Japanese soldiers were stationed in Indochina.

Rather than return home, he stayed among some 600 former soldiers recruited by Vietnamese army to bring military expertise to fight the French.

About half the Japanese died in fighting or from disease, but when Vietnamese army beat the French in 1954, the Vietnamese government decided the survivors should be sent home.

Xuan's husband was in the first group of 71 soldiers to go home in 1954. They were not allowed to take families. Others left in 1961 and could take families, but by then some had had children with more than one wife. Some had to be left behind.

The final goodbye to her father is burned in the memory of 63-year-old Nguyen Thi Van.

"He promised to come back and pick us up. But he never could," she said. He died seven years after returning to Japan.

The separated families struggled.

"They called me a Japanese fascist and then we fought," said Nguyen Xuan Phi, Ms. Xuan's oldest son, describing his school days.

Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko meet with family members of Japanese veterans living in Vietnam, in Hanoi, Vietnam, March 2^nd, 2017.

The situation improved after Vietnam’s victory over the United States in 1975. The end of the Cold War brought a rapid improvement in relations with Japan.

"I'm so touched to meet the Emperor and Empress today. Though old now, they still fly all the way here to meet us," said Ms. Xuan, the only surviving widow attending the meeting with Emperor Akihito.

Japan has been Vietnam's biggest aid donor over four decades. For private investment, it ranks second to South Korea.

"We thank you and hope the ties between our countries will be better and better," Ms. Xuan said as she gave the Imperial couple a hug.

Emperor Akihito‘s first visit to Vietnam followed one in January by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

After her husband left, she never had married, she said. In 2005, the two were briefly reunited when he and his Japanese family came to visit.

"I felt contented to see him again, though only once," Ms. Xuan said. "The past is past. Now is the time to move on."

( Compiled by VNF )