Sodium lanterns turn the world yellow at dusk, and the change brings sadness. A father notices a child’s quietness and takes him for ice cream in the village, under the same lantern light. The shared moment feels like connection and togetherness. Ten years after a father’s death from cancer, growing up is described as losing color over time, with heartbreak, regret, unspoken words, and unrealized dreams. Time leaves marks, and people cope in different ways, including clinging to careers and other distractions. The question becomes how to hold onto color, resist bitterness, and remain light-hearted despite life’s inevitability.
"Moments later, we were standing outside the shop, directly under one of those lanterns. My dad was holding his bike in the snow, enjoying his ice cream with sprinkles. "Lekker he?" he said. ("Delicious, huh?") I've never been sure, but it felt as if in that moment, he meant to say, "We are both feeling this together, aren't we?""
"I'm thirty now, and it's been ten years since I lost my dad to cancer. In hindsight, growing up felt much like those evenings when the sodium lights lit up the streets: with time passing by, the world inevitably lost some of its color. Broken hearts, bad decisions, dreams that'll never make it into reality, words unspoken, too late to be said. More things to look back on, to be bitter about, or to get stuck on somewhere along the way. Time leaves its marks one way or another, and nobody seems to escape it."
"How do we cope with this fact of life? And how can one hold onto color, resist growing bitter, and stay light-hearted like a child? Is it even possible? Growing up, I watched people cope with this in various ways: clinging to careers, projecting it"
Read at Tiny Buddha
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