“We no longer need to know war the way you learned it, sir,” I said to uncle as I wheeled him out to the graveled path on the front yard, to give him his monthly haircut, to suit him up in his old jacket. He grumbled and cursed, and chewed what was left of his gums, squishy noises they made with his tongue. He took out a photo from the breast pocket, the only photo he had of them three brothers. The only photo he knew.
Now with pasty skin, camphor smell, and milky eyes, uncle saw my father cry once. It was in the photo. They had fought at the front line during wartime in the south. Eldest among the three, my father bent over by the window. The morning sun slanted high—perhaps mirrored—to the ceiling. Sunlight or artificial light, either way, the light gave no warmth in the hospital room, only the starkness of shadows, the nakedness of the shiny floor. My uncle had just kissed their youngest brother in his deathbed and covered his still pliant body with cloth. A journalist caught the scene and the photo ran in the newspapers, in magazines, through international news agencies, through the wires, through the web. It reached the heavens, but God did not care. Abroad, it won an award, while back at home, my uncle lost everything.