"Some places remember more than people do. Grass grows where grief once knelt."
The day began with still air and a sky too wide to measure. It was one of those mornings that didn't rush. Didn't whisper. Didn't hum. Just breathed.
Krish woke early, not because of a nightmare, but because something inside told him today would be different. He didn't know why. He didn't ask. He just followed that quiet pull.
His mother stood at the kitchen counter, wrapping two rotis in old newspaper. "We'll visit the field today," she said. He knew which one she meant. The one at the edge of the village. The one where they had placed a wooden marker months ago. The one that held no statue, no stone—just a name.
He nodded. Didn't speak. Some moments don't need words to agree.
They packed a tiffin, a bottle of water, a handful of marigolds from the windowsill. Then walked. Not fast. Not slow. Just together.
The field looked the same. Still, golden. The wind moved the grass like a mother brushing her child's hair. In the far corner, under the tamarind tree, stood the marker. Weather-worn. Crooked. But standing.
Krish walked up to it. Ran his fingers over the carved letters. The name. His father's.
The sunlight hit the wood in soft stripes. He sat beside it. His mother laid the marigolds down. No prayers. No chanting. Just silence.
He stared at the name. Then closed his eyes. And whispered, "I thought if I came here, I would feel closer to you. But you're already everywhere."
His mother sat next to him, opened the tiffin. They ate quietly. Sharing bites like old times. The food tasted like memory.
After they finished, Krish took out his notebook. He had brought it without planning. Just felt right. He tore out a page. Wrote:
"You are not buried here. You are not wood or dust or shadow. You are wind. Voice. And morning light.
This is just a place with your name. But I carry your story in my steps."
He folded the paper, slid it beneath the stone, then stood up.
His mother looked up. "Ready to go?" He nodded. But before they turned, he looked out across the field.
And saw them. Other names. Other markers. Simple. Unnamed. Each one holding a story. Each one hiding a voice.
He whispered, "So many gone. So many remembered quietly."
His mother said, "That's how life leaves. Not in noise. But in names on wood, and children who carry them home."
As they walked back, the wind picked up. It moved through the trees, touched their shoulders. And for a moment, it felt like someone walking with them.
Krish didn't speak the rest of the way. But when they reached home, he took the marigold vase from the window, placed it beside Papa's photo, and whispered, "We visited you today. But really, you never left."
That night, he wrote again.
"Dear Papa, The field was warm today. Even the earth remembered. Your name stood tall, even if the wood leaned.
I sat beside it. Felt you in the silence. In the way the sun touched my shoulder. In the way Mama packed lunch like you were still here.
And I realized, you aren't just a name carved into something. You are the reason I keep walking. The reason I sit with stillness. The reason I see beauty in quiet things.
Love, Krish."
He folded the paper. Slipped it beneath his pillow. Then blew out the lamp.
And in the soft dark, he felt his name being held too. By the same love. By the same memory. By the same father.