Chasing Daylight

The first time Mira held her son, the morning sun was rising—soft and golden, slipping quietly through the hospital window. She named him Surya, the Sanskrit word for "sun," not only because he was born at dawn but because even then, she sensed he would outshine every shadow in her life.

He was her light, her rhythm, her warmth.

Their small home at the edge of the village always basked in sunlight. As a child, Surya would run barefoot through the fields, laughing like the wind, his arms outstretched as if trying to embrace the sky. Mira watched him from the doorway each morning, coffee in hand, her heart aching with a love so fierce it made her feel both invincible and fragile.

She often told him, “You are the day, my child. And I’ll always be chasing you.”

He never quite understood what she meant. But he would smile, his sun-bright eyes crinkling, and hug her tightly. “Then I won’t run too far, Amma.”

But children don’t stay in the fields forever. Days turn, seasons pass, and the sun always rises higher than we can reach.

When Surya turned eighteen, he left for the city to study. Mira packed his clothes with trembling hands, slipping in a packet of his favorite dried mangoes, and stitched a tiny red thread inside the hem of his coat—for luck, for protection, for love. He hugged her goodbye at the train station, his excitement barely hiding the tear at the corner of his eye.

She waved until the train disappeared, until the tracks swallowed the last glimpse of him. And then she stood in the morning light, blinking back her grief.

The house was never quiet before Surya left. But afterward, silence bloomed in every room like dust. Mira still rose early each morning, made two cups of tea by habit, and kept the second on the table, untouched, letting it cool beside her.

Letters came. Then emails. Then fewer of both. Time, as it does, drifted like clouds between them.

Years passed.

One evening, long after the sun had dipped behind the hills, a knock came at the door. It wasn’t Surya.

It was a man in uniform. He said there had been an accident. A car. A hospital too far away. They did everything they could.

The light in her world went out.

The days that followed were a blur of rituals, condolences, and hands that patted her back like they could push grief out of her bones. But nothing helped. Surya was gone, and Mira had nothing left to chase.

She stopped rising at dawn. She no longer looked at the sun.

Until one morning—nearly a year later—something stirred. A dream. A voice. A warmth that filled her chest.

In her dream, Surya was standing in the same field where he had once played, arms outstretched again, but this time toward her. He said nothing. He just smiled, bathed in sunlight. And she, for the first time in a year, felt warmth on her face again.

Mira woke up before dawn.

She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and stepped outside. The sky was still dark, but she began to walk toward the hills. Her feet followed the old path, her breath visible in the morning chill, and as she reached the crest of the hill, the first rays of the sun touched her face.

Tears came—not like rain, but like dew—soft and quiet.

In the distance, the light painted gold over the fields, and for a moment, she could almost see him again, running through the tall grass, laughing.

“I'm still chasing you,” she whispered. “But now, I know you are the daylight.”

And from that day on, Mira rose each morning to greet the sun. Not because she was waiting for him to return, but because in every beam of light, she felt him there—guiding her, warming her, reminding her that love, like the sun, never truly sets.