Renewal at the Place of Black Tears
The oil that bubbles up each day from the sunken USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor is called black tears. A story of renewal after tragedy.
1.5 million.
That's the number of gallons of fuel on board the USS Arizona at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Between the initial explosion and the fire that burned for three days, it was estimated that 2/3 of the fuel was consumed. The remaining 500,000 gallons from the sunken ship continues to seep out at the rate of 2-9 quarts daily.
Every day.
Every day since the attack over 75 years ago.
The oil -- also known as black tears -- bubbles up from the darkness every few moments and spreads quietly over the surface of the water, creating artistic designs in the sunlight.
Author and photographer, Jerome A Kaufman, was struck by the powerful images he was able to photograph and coupled the pictures with quotes in his book, Renewal at the Place of Black Tears. I purchased the book when I visited Pearl Harbor this summer. I was moved by the symbolism of the possibility of something beautiful after tragedy.
Kaufman began the project -- in part -- as a tribute to his father who had turned 20 on the beaches of Normandy during World War II, an event he never talked about. When Kaufman's father was given a terminal diagnosis, he said he wanted to go back to France, something Kaufman pulled together four weeks later.
In a supplemental page in the book, Kaufman writes that when they got to Normandy, his dad ripped off his oxygen tube, left his wheelchair behind, and walked the beach like his 20-year-old self. At first there was silence, but then the stories that his father had never shared began to bubble up from hidden, dark places like the oil on the USS Arizona, finally emerging to the light of day.
I understand the untold stories.
My husband's father, Erwin Julius Hartke, fought in World War II in an artillery unit in Germany and France. His company was part of the liberation of a concentration camp.
He never talked about it. Never.
When I started putting together a family album before Erv's death, he told me a few snippets, tiny snatches of bubbled-up memories, but mostly he kept things inside. The only time the stories flowed was when he got together with his war-time friends.
"Decades later, they fought each battle again and again," my mother-in-law often told me.
I thought of my father-in-law when I visited Pearl Harbor. I thought of how Erv returned home, got married, and raised three boys, one of whom is now my husband. Erv carried the effects of war with him the rest of his life, but I like to think he created something beautiful in the aftermath. For him, choosing a normal life was his renewal from black tears.
If you have experienced your own place of black tears, I'd like to share one picture from the book, entitled War and Peace. I pray you also discover renewal in the hidden places of your story.
