CLOSURE. SADNESS. JOY. HOPE
We live in a world that is held together by the reality’s that we embrace. Some choose to turn a blind eye to truth, while others don’t have a choice. Their situations, circumstances and surroundings determine what they know, and what truth they will believe.
Tonight my family has learned about my older siblings death. Byron Canas. He would’ve been 11 years older than me; my big bro. The story takes place in 1971 in Chicago, Ill, USA, after my mother gave birth to my brother. He was taken by the medical team, without any complications reported or even mentioned to my parents. Within an hour they led my dad to see his little body in an incubator, and still no mention of any health issues. He was born at 34 weeks old; a preemie. Weighing less than 3.2 lbs (1.45 kg) After a few hours he was declared dead without any explanation. My parents asked to view the body but the hospital refused to let them see him. The University of Illinois Hospital isn’t a shady place, so I can’t understand why they would deny my parents the right to see him. But they never saw him.
Because of my parents young age, recent migration to America, and the circumstances taking place in Chicago at the time (human trafficking), they were led to believe that they were victims of a plot that would keep them from their child forever. 4 years later my sister Vanessa was born in the same city and hospital. I was born 11 years later at USC Medical Hospital in Los Angeles, CA. We have lived our lives believing that by some miracle of God, we would find our older brother and be reunited. Curious to know what has become of his life. Wondering if he was married and if I was an uncle, because maybe he had 7 kids that all played basketball and football.
Due to improving technology and new ways of record keeping by hospitals, morgues and genealogy agencies, on January 22, 2018, we came across the actual, “Medical Certificate of Death” of my brother, Byron. A document that the hospital at one time denied my parents. Yet now it was available to anyone via online after simple verification process and a small fee. Crazy! But it is confirmed. Baby Cañas, (as named on the certificate) wasn’t taken and smuggled into the the dark world of human trafficking. He simply died of “respiratory distress”.
We cried... And Jordan (my son) cried. I witnessed my mother and father cry tears of confusion. They asked me to read the certificate of death line by line, section by section, as they confirmed the information that was registered by state of Illinois.
Suddenly...tears of closure.
What they were longing to know for decades was finally being revealed. Their reality shifted. Now the memory of a stolen child has to be erased and replaced with one of a child that didn’t survive but a few hours. The truth is that my older brother only would borrow enough oxygen to live on earth for 2 hours and 31 minutes.
Closure. Sadness and joy. Hope
I can now stop wondering where you are on this earth brother. And now I look forward to the day that I get to meet you face to face, on streets of gold, in the presence of our heavenly Father, one day in Heaven.
Is this it? Not necessarily. We found the cemetery where his body is registered and declared to be buried. And even though we now rest with knowing that hope of being reunited is more than a reality, it will happen; I now desire to seek answers and clarity; to seek justice for my parents. To know the why behind the mystery of my brothers birth and death.
