When Kinship Sings
By Erica Curry Van Ee
LISTEN TO THE AUTHOR READING:
I traveled to Estonia in July 2025, expecting Estonia’s Song and Dance Celebration to be the highlight of my two-week journey back to my ancestral homeland. Since 1869, this global gathering has taken place every five years, long before Estonia had independence or political power. In those early years, singing publicly in Estonia became a way to stay connected through Nazi and Soviet occupations. These songs carried forbidden language, history, and hope. In the late 1980s, mass singing became the backbone of the Singing Revolution—the nonviolent movement that led to the 1991 declarations of independence by the Baltic states. One historic marker occurred in 1989, when nearly one million people joined hands to form a 400-mile human chain stretching across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. This event became known as the Baltic Chain, and it was a defining moment on the path to freedom. Singing was their act of resistance. Culture was preserved through song. Memory was carried through melody. As we consider the state of the world today, it is extraordinary to see what is possible when we prioritize unity over division.
Perhaps that was part of what made the 2025 festival theme of Kinship so powerful and palpable. It is a word I had heard before, especially in the context of adoption, but one I did not fully understand until I experienced it firsthand. Although I do not speak Estonian, the spirit of unity could be felt through every performance by the 30,000 singers, 10,000 dancers, and hundreds of thousands of spectators gathered for this four-day experience. Even more poignant was that within this collective oneness, regional identity was preserved and uplifted through embroidered patterns on traditional clothing, fresh flower crowns, distinctive dances, and songs passed down through generations.
Lifting up my hands as the crowd made a human wave, I realized this was the largest gathering I had been in since the global pandemic five years earlier. Then one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard began. It had been commissioned for 2025 and was a breakout hit at the festival. I didn’t understand the words to “Elukoor” (Choir of Life), but I felt a universal hope and triumph rising within me that brought me to tears. I realized in that moment this wasn’t just a cultural event; it was a form of collective kinship. And somehow, it belonged to me too. This confirmation came for me when I looked up the lyrics:
In the beginning was the breath, a silent sigh in the dark.
Then came the first pulse, the heartbeat of our kin.
We are the trees of this forest, with roots deep in the soil.
We are the choir of life, we sing across the ages!
One kin and one blood, one breath and one song.
Your voice is my voice, my blood is your blood.
The song we sing today, mothers hummed long ago.
It travels through the marrow, it stays within the bones.
Don’t let the silence grow, don’t let the thread be broken.
As long as the choir remains, our kin shall never fade.
As epic as this moment was, it paled in comparison to what I found next. Before my trip, I believed that World War II had all but erased my maternal family line. Horrific war crimes and displacement ultimately led to my biological mother’s inability to keep and parent me.
I had planned to retrace my grandfather Riho’s harrowing ten-month escape from his homeland recounted in his 1944 journal, starting with his village being burned down and ending with losing everything except his life when his escape ship was torpedoed. My birthmother sent me this journal ten years ago when I first found her, 45 years after she relinquished me for adoption. She received it from a distant cousin in Estonia, so I knew I had one remaining living relative, but I was overwhelmed with delight to discover dozens of family members alive and well. I found loving, interconnected, multigenerational families who had returned home after deportation to rebuild their lives, staying closely connected over the 35-plus years since their liberation from Russia. I was welcomed into three different family homes in Tallinn, Võru County, and Viljandi. These were not symbolic visits. They hosted me overnight. We shared meals, saunas, stories, and family trees. I was welcomed as a long-lost family member who had found my way home.
Technology played a significant role with real-time translation, particularly with the older generations that did not learn English in school. With language no longer a barrier, I was able to have meaningful conversations with relatives. What remained was a familiarity I can only explain as being rooted in our DNA. Even though we had never met before, I could see similarities in our personalities, professions, shared values, and the entirety of my very essence.
The emotional anchor of my journey was Endla, whom I met on my first and last nights in Tallinn. She was ninety-six years old, and by the time I met her, she had advanced dementia. She was the family matriarch, my grandfather Riho’s only niece and goddaughter. She survived deportation to Siberia, where her musical gift of perfect pitch helped keep her alive and thriving. When she returned home after Stalin’s death, she started several traditions that have continued since 1962: a family reunion, a family flag, a family band called Roots, and a family song she wrote herself. One evening, I watched three generations of my family sing it together without lyric sheets or hesitation. The melody lived in them. When I read the lyrics in English, I felt my heart swell with overwhelming joy followed by an epiphany: I have more biological relatives living in Estonia than anywhere else in the world. I had come home to my roots.
We children, scattered wide by many winds and roads,
We still carry home in our hearts.
Here sons and daughters always grew, under watchful skies above.
Here spirit stirred and care was poured like daily bread, like love.
But when war’s bitter winds destroyed the lives that once had been,
Many branches of the tree were lost and sorrow settled in.
Now home lies in ruin, and old ancestral trees remain,
The overgrown paths of cattle lost, not much is left to name.
But once a year, we gather still, so we don’t become unknown,
And let the memory of that place still bind us as our own.
On my last night in Tallinn, Endla reached for my hand. For most of my visit, our communication was nonverbal. She looked at me with eyes that smiled in delight and a laugh that echoed my mother’s. She touched my hand, looked deeply into my eyes and said, “We are close relatives.” I had felt the same recognition and through tearful eyes exclaimed, “I know. I feel it too.” It was one of the most powerful moments of my life.
Just three months later, she passed away. Although I grieve that we only met once, I am so grateful to have met her. I received everything I needed and so much more that affirmed who I am, where I came from, and why I am here. I believe she waited for me.
My grandfather fled Estonia under unimaginable circumstances. He was a double refugee who rebuilt his life in Germany and then America, but he never recovered because he never got to go home again. The branches of our family that returned to Estonia healed in ways he could not. They stayed connected. They gathered. They sang. They belonged to one another. If kinship is this powerful, stabilizing, and identity-forming, then is family separation its antithesis? When separation is unavoidable, kinship care is not just best practice; it is perhaps the single most important protective factor that we have. What I experienced in Estonia was evidence that when we know better, we must do better.
Estonia challenged how I see the world and my future. It’s one of the most digitally advanced nations in Europe, with a strong education system and a deep respect for history. Estonians sing so the best and worst parts of history are never erased. This experience reframed how I think about the influence of nature and nurture in human development and the significance of kinship.
In 2026, I’m pursuing citizenship requests in Estonia and Germany. I see this as a symbolic act of restoration and reparation for all that was taken from and lost by my family generations ago. It’s also an intentional shift in how I see myself in the world, as a global citizen shaped by intertwined histories but not defined by them. Humans are a complex blend of nature and nurture, and when kinship sings, it has the power to teach us who we are and why we’re here.
