I sat with the ghosts. Not to banish them but to listen. Not all hauntings come with screams. Some wear your uniform. Some sleep in your bed. I’ve carried brothers whose names I whisper like mantras between breaths. They did not make it back. I did. And that’s the burden. Not survival. The aftermath. There is a lie the war told me: That guilt is proof of love. That carrying pain is how we honor the fallen. That to feel joy is betrayal. But I’ve learned this: A heart clenched in grief cannot hold legacy. The dead don’t want our sorrow. They want our becoming. So I sit. I breathe. In. Out. Again. This is the practice. The battlefield quiets not with suppression but with awareness. I name the memory. I bless it. And I let it pass, like clouds through the sky I no longer need to control. The guilt no longer commands me. It visits— but it does not own. I saw myself once in a dream wearing the same gear, but smiling. Not because I forgot. But because I forgave. Not others. Me. Healing is not forgetting. It’s loving yourself despite remembering. You do not erase the war. You integrate it. Like fire and flood— both destroy and cleanse. Like blade and balm— both can protect. I became both. I walk now with softer eyes. Still vigilant. Still scarred. But open. And when sorrow returns as it will I don’t resist. I bow. I breathe. I say: “I see you. But I am still here.” That is the vow. That is the fight. I did not die. So I will live. Fully. Freely. Fiercely. This breath? It remembers. And still it rises.