You Could Have Been My Brother

It is a rainy day in New York City, as I walk home from the film that tells your story, there is a thought that haunts me. I don’t know who you are, right now you are in a Spanish prison. We are worlds apart and yet I’ve learned enough about your story to know you could have been my brother. And this makes me feel closer to a man I do not know at all.

You could have been my brother. His story could have been your story. Years have passed, but still, what happened for my brother can still happen for you. Let me tell you what is waiting for you. You will find friendship, you will find advocacy. You will come to know the love of a woman who is not family, then the heartaches that come from that breaking. You will find the joy of career, the fulfillment of an honest day’s work. You will remember how a free man walks on concrete, how to unlock your door. You will fall in love again, and buy her a ring. You will get down on one knee and know the joy of yes.

You will know the joy of yes, the exhilaration of yes, after fourteen years of no you will find the simple and profound joy of yes. Paco Larranaga, you are an innocent man jailed for no fault of yours. You could have been my brother, and on this eve of Easter Sunday, I pray for you as if you were my brother.

One thought on “You Could Have Been My Brother

  1. Very well said.

    Paco was a friend of my first cousin. Like Hubert Webb, there are too few degrees of separation from me and these two victims of an incredible injustice. He could have been my brother. It could have been my cousin or it could me. We can’t be silent amidst all these injustices.

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