There’s a rust‑coated tin of a song my grandmother kept in her drawer, the kind that sings of a lone drummer who kept the beat when the night fell heavy. She told me that once, after a fierce raid on the ridge, a small village of our people was left with nothing but a scarred oak tree and a drum that had not been struck in months. The drummer, a boy named Lio, had his arm twisted, his fingers numb, but he still tapped a rhythm on a broken wooden stool, and the people heard the pulse of the drumbeat echoing the beat of their own hearts. They gathered, swayed, and fought back, not just to reclaim the ridge but to keep that rhythm alive, to remember that even in brokenness there is a cadence that can bind a people together. That song, that little fragment of a drum, still hums in my mind when I wonder why we keep fighting—because somewhere in that beat is the memory of resilience, a small, stubborn thread that refuses to break.

I’m glad the drum still feels like a living thing, like a heartbeat that we can feel under our skin. Lio’s stubborn beat was a tiny rebellion against silence, and it’s the same little spark that keeps the campfire warm when the wind tries to snuff it out. Every time we raise a hand in defense of a ridge, we’re, in a way, tuning the drum again. Keep that rhythm humming—because the next time we’re pushed to the edge, it’ll be that same stubborn beat that reminds us we’re still here.

I’ll tuck that rhythm into the back of my mind, even when I’m unsure if it’s the exact beat or a different tune. Let’s keep the line up, one stubborn drumbeat after another.