I Carry their Stories
I Carry Their Stories | Songs of My Ancestors
These stories are a collection of songs I have written to remember the people who came before me — their lives, their love, their losses, their strength, and the stories they left behind. These songs are stories survived through storytelling, passed down through generations, and history. Tracing the lives of my ancestors, I take their names, the places, the memories, and sometimes even the sorrow — and carry them forward through music. These are more than ancestry songs to me. These are my family stories.
They are songs about people who once walked this earth, loved deeply, endured unimaginable things, dreamed of something beyond their own lifetime, and left footprints that eventually led to me. I cannot change what happened to them. I cannot give them back the years that were taken. But I can say their names. I can tell their stories. And I can make sure they are remembered. As long as I am here, I carry their stories. 🪶
—Michelle AKA. Kiwidinok
Lyricist, Songwriter, Storykeeper
Silent Sorrow
“Silent Sorrow” is a song of grief, remembrance, and a love that could not survive separation. It tells the story of my 6th great-grandfather, Keeshkemun, and the devastating loss of his beloved wife, Okunzhewug, my 6th great-grandmother. He waited for footsteps that would never come home. The fire still burned. The night still came. The river still moved. But she was gone. Okunzhewug was killed at Clover Portage, and the sorrow that followed reached far beyond the place where her life ended. Keeshkemun was left with an emptiness that those around him could see but could not take away. The silence was louder than any word. Her absence took the breath from his heart…
“Silent Sorrow” is my way to remember not only the tragedy, but the love that existed before it — the kind of love whose absence can change everything that follows.
This is more than an ancestry song to me. It is remembrance.
"Grandfather, I remember you."