You told me you didn’t feel you contributed anything to anyone anymore. My father, your brother, died when I was four years old. I have maybe three or four actual memories of him and some memories that are from stories someone else told me and I took them as my own memories. I didn’t get to see his smile except in old photographs. I didn’t get to hear his voice and I never had the chance to hear the advice he would have passed to me from his parents when he thought I needed to hear those things.
I was able to see his smile in yours. I heard his voice in your voice. I was able to listen to those lessons from him through you, and only through you. You gave me my father.
In the Spirit of Medicine features the essays of Dr. Arne Vainio, an enrolled member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and a family practice doctor on the Fond Du Lac reservation in Cloquet. His essays on life, work, medicine, and spirit are published in News from Indian Country and you can find the link to this story here.