Inheritance and Sovereignty

One of my Hawaiian teachers once said:
we are the sum of all that’s come before us.

I imagine myself
standing on the shoulders of my ancestors
acknowledging the sweat,
the tears,
the toil.
The sacrifice.
The strength that lives in my bones.
The endurance that found its way into me.

And also
the pain.
The bitterness.
The ache of being unseen.
The generations of voices suppressed.
The longing to live
fully expressed
and never having the chance.

And then
the joy.
The love.
The moments of beauty
that refused to die.

I hold both.

My inheritance
and my sovereignty.
The line I come from
and the truth I live now.

And when I feel the pull
to stay small

I remember
I am standing
on their shoulders.

To remember
that I come from something larger.
I am part of a story
still unfolding.
And I do not walk alone.

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