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ABOUT MR. TANEMORI
Photo by Steve Northup for the New York Times
My name is Takashi "Thomas" Tanemori, I am a "hibakusha", and an atomic bomb survivor, a constant shameful [guilty] reminder that we have lost the war. After the bombing, I went from being the treasured Number One Son to an Oyanashigo--a street urchin. As I tried to survive after the loss of my parents, I became a rat, searching waste sites and garbage cans for food, just to stay alive in the poverty-stricken rubble of postwar Japan. I fought constantly against a traditional society that showed no mercy to a "fatherless" child and was ostracized by my fellow Japanese. My life was controlled by the emotion of revenge, lashing out at people for their icy unwillingness to help: "To revenge I worked, by revenge I slept, and for revenge I had to survive. Vengeance, my old friend, my old enemy, and my constant comfort companion held me together".
The "Path" of Hiroshima has taught me this most important lesson: Those who have lost the most in war are also the ones who have the most to gain by putting aside feelings of revenge--going beyond our own cocoon--learning to forgive by making peace with our own painful past.
By the time I was 16 years old, the burden of dishonor and despair was too great, and I attempted suicide and I failed at this, too. This "failed" event was considered as social sin and disgrace and, there was no "place" for me to hide my shame and sorrow in my society. I hate the people and the country that did this to me. Sinking into a sea of self-loathing, my rage against the Americans intensified and I made the daring act - bound by an oath on my Father's grave that I would go to America and avenge his memory.
* * *
In June 1956 at age of 18, I immigrated to America, having resolved to take vengeance on Americans--all children must suffer as I! This way they would understand what it is like to live as an orphan. Instead of the "road" to revenge, I was transported to a disgruntled-multi-cultural migrant labor camp in Delano, California, "picking fruit to feed the people of my enemy". I soon was subjected to blatant racial, ethnic and cultural prejudices. I was called a "Jap" and at various times, was held responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor. As I was a child at the end of the war, this irrational accusation only added fuel to my hatred.
However, sometime after I landed in the migrant labor camp, food poisoning put me in the hospital. Due to the language barrier the doctors misdiagnosed my illness as radiation poisoning. They shuttled me from one hospital to the next. Because I was frightened, confused and resistant, I eventually wound up in the confines of a locked psychiatric ward. The doctors used me like a 'guinea pig,' for the next 6 months to study the effects of radiation on the human body--countless blood tests, spinal taps, subjecting to electric shock and other medical experimental treatments became daily routine. I was lonely, terrified, confused and completely isolated in solitude. No one spoke my language. I begged for a death angel until one day, an American nurse, Mary Furr, a head nurse, a devoted Christian, showed me unconditional love and cared for me like a son. "Poor Takashi, he doesn't need all these treatments; he just needs someone to love him...." I think that what she said. My heart, which had been frozen in hatred, began to thaw.
This caring American nurse, whom I once considered my enemy, salvaged my soul and my life from the American snake-pit of 60's--she became my new guardian. I experienced a side of humanity that I had never known. She gave me a new meaning to my life: hope! I learned that not all Americans are monsters, and this single woman's unconditional love caused my heart to take the first giant step, leaping toward a radical transformation. It was only then for the first time I thought that I could live "for" something instead of "against" everything!
Budding leaves renew this tired place, this tired soul.
Gently the rain is embraced by her love,
comforting this savaged heart.
A blade of grass emerges from the ashes,
and my heart becomes a light, connecting me to heaven.
Living for one another, this is my path!
Oh Hiroshima, forever my love,
may my life become a bridge from you to others.
I learned that forgiveness not only defines the relationship between the divine and humanity, but it also sustains the heart of human relationships. The Single act of Mary's love led me to understand that without forgiveness the heart is strangled. This became the central message that gave new meaning to my life and why I eventually became a Gospel minister, serving white men's congregations--exacting revenge through love and service", capitulating to their hearts.
Even though I was giving my life to the ministry, I was still haunted by the vow I made at my Father's gravesite to avenge his death. It secretly tore at my heart. The wrongs committed had to be avenged--leading to an endless cycle of vengeance, violence, and more vengeance over and over. As my heart dealt with this, I began to wonder who would have to take revenge for what I might commit. The balance would be restored not by killing Americans, but by ministering to their needs, guiding them through the darkness in their hearts.
After I gave twenty years of my life in my ministry, the white congregation finally rejected me, for it was inconceivable for a "Jap" to be their spiritual minister, which almost destroyed my heart. I lost my "ministry" and my cupboard was empty for my three children. Even though I was ousted from the ministry, I still wanted to reach the hearts of Americans--and now through their "stomachs"--I became a proprietor of Japanese Garden Restaurant; and four years later, once again things didn't quite go as planned. I suffered from two heart attacks, which left me no choice, I had to sell my prized achievement. Divorce followed and shattered my family. My life was torn and wracked, and I was once again searching for the meaning and purpose for my life.
* * *
Although I left Japan in 1956, the shadow of Hiroshima followed me. My faith in life was once again tested! In 1987, I discovered that I was going blind by a long-term consequence of that morning to the dying ember of explosion in the naked sky so long ago. After the initial shock, I raged again at the bomb and the people of the United States for destroying my family. My hatred for the treatments I received as an orphan resurfaced. "Would I never leave Hiroshima behind," I screamed in fury. The blast has taken my family...and now, it is robbing my sight, my independence and my dignity! Yet, one day, I remembered an image from the spring of 1946 of a single blade of grass from out of the ruins. This symbol of the earth's healing power held my heart together and provided inspiration for my own healing.
I survived the bombing of Hiroshima -- going blind would not be the end of my world. I vowed to use my "disability" to inspire others. In time, I learned to use a white cane and gained a new partner, my guide dog, Michi, which means "the way" in Japanese. After years of emotional and physical darkness, I was finally able to see that "the way" can only be found by going beyond our own pain and helping others. [Subsequently, I endured four major surgeries, including total gastrectomy because of cancer, and my life has hung in the balance. But, now, I have received a clean bill of health.]
After this renewed sense of life the reconciliation with former enemies became central. Examples include work for the former California Governor George Deukmejian's Pacific Rim Goodwill Mission projects as an inter-cultural business consultant. I was eagerly involved with the Russian Winter Medical and Food Relief Campaign. I have also been involved with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a primogenitor of the atomic bomb, to aide with a research initiative for the development of a guidance system for the blind as a part of "military-peace-conversion" project. I also made overture-apologies to a local chapter of Pearl Harbor survivors and worked with "Children of the Manhattan Project" projects. I have made two sincere, but unsuccessful attempts to meet with and reconcile with the "father of the atom bomb", Dr. Glenn T Seaborg, and General Paul Tibbets who lead Enola Gay to the naked sky over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. I have also met and embraced Dr. Robert Christy, who was one of the physicists, who worked on the bomb. I also served, as a consultant, on the film documentation on "Hiroshima" by ShowTime Networks for the 50th Anniversary of Hiroshima in 1995.
How did all of this come to happen? I would like to share the story...It's my Hiroshima story of "the vision of the crane and the butterfly", and my journey "from revenge to forgiveness" and peace. This story begins the night before the bombing...
* * *
On the evening of August 5th 1945, as I remember, suddenly, searchlights scraped the sky, and the sirens came shrieking from all directions at once. The soothing sounds of the cicada were quickly drowned out by an unexpected air raid. As neighbors ran underground to escape the thunder of the approaching "B-san" (B-29's), we were packed in like sardines and the screams of frightened children filled the air. When someone finally lit a candle, the light and the familiar smell of burning wax reassured me that we were all together. I slipped my hand for comfort into my Father's, closed my eyes and fell sleep.
At some point during the night, I was awakened by a transcendent vision. In a waking dream, I was lifted out of the bomb shelter and taken to meet the mythic white crane, "Senba-zuru, as Mighty as a One Thousand Cranes", who spoke to me of loss, suffering, survival, renewal and transformation--images of the continual rebirth of life and of spirit. I was shown many of the horrors to come and also was told that the key to my survival was to hold onto the words of my Father and remember "who I was and to follow my heart." At the end of the vision, I was horrified to witness Senba-zuru sucked up into a giant fireball. As I lay sobbing on the ground in despair, the burned out embers from the fireball transformed into monarch butterflies and Senba-zuru returned to me, as a white butterfly, reminding me to follow my inner light.
Then on the morning on August 6, 1945, 8:15 am, as a rambunctious 8 years old, second grade student, filled with life, I was "IT" in a game with my classmates of "hide-and-seek". Suddenly the blinding flash of white light, deafening and rumbling sounds bearing down from the heavens have erupted in an incredible crash of power, shaking heaven and earth, turning into a raging ball of vortex. I was 7/10th of mile from Ground Zero when America dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The city, my home turned into vortex as I saw in my dream the night before in the bomb shelter. Although I survived, six members of my family, including both parents were killed. Every horrific detail is etched in my memory and has become the touchstone of my life.
In the aftermath of postwar Japan and in America--my life was given only to survive. I have forgotten this vision for forty years until August 5, 1985. While I was driving my dilapidated, but comfortable, American car on the way to Saint Mary's Cathedral, a Remembrance Rally in San Francisco to give another "pay-back" speech about revenge, avenging my Father's death.
"What liberty and justice for all? Americans will never begin to understand true peace until they have suffered like me. While crossing the Bay Bridge, mid-way, I began to identify it with the bridge that I built, spanning the last 40 years since my father's death. I have sustained that bridge for these decades by a single consumed emotion of Anger and Revenge. I saw a strange mushroom-shaped cloud formation in the distance. Suddenly the memory of that vision in the dark summer-steeped bomb shelter came flooding back.
As I sat sobbing in despair and crying at the wheel of my parked car on Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay, I thought about the crane and the butterfly in my vision, to my amazement, a white butterfly flew into the car, gracefully landing on the dashboard. It stayed there momentarily, a fluttering pair of iridescent wings. When it flew out soaring freely into the blue sky, at that moment, the weight of the past was lifted from my heart. Looking back, I realize that the crane and the butterfly had been guiding me like an unseen rudder through stormy seas of hatred and revenge to forgiveness and peace.
I have personally experienced the anguish and suffering caused by the atomic bomb. Yet, I truly understand that it is NOT the atom bomb, but war--created by fear, conflict, distrust and division in the human heart in the world, which causes so much human suffering and sacrifice. It became clear to me that neither Americans nor icy Japanese society were my enemies, but darkness of my own heart that is the root of all problems. Although I agree nuclear weapons have no place in the world (I am now for the eradication of nuclear weapons), however, focusing on them alone may divert our attention from our greatest enemy--the hatred and fear that divide our hearts and threaten to destroy our world. It was then I finally understood the meaning and suffering of Hiroshima, uncovering from the rubble of WW II the love and forgiveness in my heart. There is one final war, the most difficult one of all, as it goes diametrically against our own human nature--learn to forgive, to reconcile and make peace with our painful past with former enemies. This war must be fought if our humanity is to survive and if our children are to have a safer place to live with different nationalities to live side by side in "Heiwa", a peace that flows from equality and harmony.
Now, I have come to realize that any nation can regress or even destroy itself, not because they lack scientific or technological knowledge, but due to the disconnect between the lessons of its historical context and its citizens' collective understanding of those lessons. Any nation that forgets its history is bound to repeat it!
As a part of my own healing and a natural out come of the epiphany on August 5, 1985, I founded Silkworm Peace Institute. I have dedicated the remainder of my life to serving others. The goals of the Silkworm Peace Institute are to promote healing and cultural understanding and transforming revenge and anger into peace and forgiveness.
Ironically, the Path of Hiroshima gave me the greatest gift--the gift of forgiveness and allows me to see Americans, learning to take the time to appreciate the intrinsic value of whom I considered my former enemy--we are all one! So many innocent people have suffered, and so many have died. Peace is the only legacy that they ask of us and that is the only real gift that we can give them!
I have often wondered what would have become of me had I continued on in my quest for revenge and retribution? I also wonder what will become of our world if it will not embrace forgiveness and peace!
Today, I am a 68-year-old, a resident of Lafayette, California with my guide dog, (this is my second guide dog) "Yuki" which means white "snow", representing 'purity' in Japanese, as is the personification of the most magnificent bird, a majestic white crane--'Senba-zuru' in my vision, whose feathers were as white and pure as fresh fallen snow on a moonlit winter night. I finally understand that going beyond my personal suffering and helping others leads to healing. Even though I am now almost completely blind, when I first saw with the "vision of the heart" I was at last, able to truly "see". I have come to the understanding that for our humanity to survive, the time has come for us to embrace forgiveness as a major component in the process of achieving world peace.
Thank you for listening to my heart,
Takashi "Thomas" Tanemori
Silkworm Peace Institute
