Our Fathers Were Brothers

Our fathers were brothers,

but we didn’t know each other well.

They announced his death in the family group chat,

with a rosary schedule posted like an invitation.

The truth came later,

in private conversations spoken through constricted mouths underneath wide eyes.

A few days later, our family, the children of 14 brothers and sisters, waited, gathered at the cargo ramp to welcome his body home.

I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to witness,

though I’d spent the last few days thinking,

it could have been any of us.

We had too much in common in our homes

Addiction

Assault

Relentless ardor

The echoes of struggles born long before us.

To the side, a cultural dance group stood waiting,

a reminder of what we still have.

One of them caught my attention,

an older man with long white hair, a white mustache,

eyes that held both grief and understanding.

The dancers stood by him, as if he anchored them

to the ground, to this moment, to history.

I heard the wails before I saw anything.

Cries so deep, they pulled grief from the ground itself.

A sound that did not begin here.

A sound that has lived through generations.

Then, from around the corner, a glimpse of wood,

draped in an American flag.

A soldier walking solemnly, his Marine brother, a uniformed shadow standing watch;

Chin lifted, steps measured towards our direction.

How ironic that our grandfather was doing war labor

on this very piece of land just 80 years before,

forced to build for an empire

that did not see him as human.

Now, on this same soil,

his grandson comes home in a box,

wearing the uniform of another empire.

As his casket came closer,

my family became a wave of black that engulfed him.

The dancers stepped in, wrapping around them,

forming a circle.

I stayed back.

All in black, they fell apart.

They would’ve melted into the earth

if not for the voices rising around them,

the bendision flowing from the dancers’ lips:

"Saina, sainan-måmi..."

The sight pulled the tears from my eyes.

Something unseen yet tangible was carrying all of us;

The song of a people.

"Hatme ham ya’ na fitme’ i latten-måmi."

The land, the voices, the song—our song,

held us up,

even when everything else tried to take us down.

I ask myself, would we be here if he’d heard this song in his heart the day he chose to leave?

If he’d been given permission to cry as loud as the wails that surrounded us now, would that have been enough for him to stay?