Life works in strange, unpredictable ways — like a roulette wheel spinning wildly. Some people hit the jackpot, while others never even stand a chance. But still, people spin it. People try. People fight. And I was one of those fighters. Unfortunately, I thought I’d died on the battlefield… until the angel saved me. Or so I believed.
At least, that’s what it felt like… that I had slipped, fallen into the abyss, and death was moments away. But it wasn’t my body that slipped… it was my thoughts.

.....

I woke up late. The world outside had already begun moving — traffic, life, obligations — but I stayed buried beneath the sheets. Not out of laziness, but fear. The weight of my own insecurities — my chains — kept me down. I glanced at the calendar: May 7, 2003. A month since I’d returned from college, broken and empty-handed. I told my family I couldn’t handle the pressure, but the truth was far more shameful: I ran. I was a coward. Life hit me like a tidal wave, and I didn’t swim — I just… fled. No explanation, no courage to look back. Just footsteps in the opposite direction.

I dragged myself out of bed. The same pale, wrinkled clothes clung to my skin like failure. My room — a wreck. But nothing looked worse than what was inside me.

Downstairs, I picked up my cold breakfast. The food had lost its warmth, but not its love. It was made by the one person who never judged me — my mother. Her love was the last thread that tethered me to earth. Each bite hurt more than hunger ever could.

I walked to the mirror, toothbrush in hand. But when I looked up, I couldn’t recognize the person staring back. I scoffed bitterly. “This is who you were never meant to be, Miles,” I muttered. “This is the boy we swore we’d never become.” My reflection didn’t flinch — he just stared back, broken. Tears ran down my cheeks, but to me, they were just water. They had no meaning anymore.

I made my way to the living room, where I saw my grandfather — the man who had always been more of a father to me than anyone else. He didn’t speak much, but when he did, his words carved themselves into my heart. I remembered him once saying:
“The storm doesn’t decide who you are. It only reveals whether you’ll bend… or break.”

He was a quiet observer, the kind of man who noticed sadness in your voice before you knew it yourself. As I picked up his phone and debit card from the table, he looked at me. I knew he didn’t want me to take it. He barely had enough to afford his medication. But I turned away anyway — I didn’t have time for his love. I was chasing pleasure. Addiction. Escape. And I spent his hard-earned money… on a game character.

Pixels. That’s all they were. Just pixels. A few pixels dressed in armor meant more to me than the man who sacrificed everything for me. There were days I screamed at him when there wasn’t enough money in the bank to buy more game credits. Days I looked him in the eye and made him feel like a burden. I never gave him the love he gave me. I never said thank you. I never said sorry.

.....

A year later, he was gone. Cancer had taken what little time he had left. And at his funeral… I didn’t cry. Not because I didn’t feel pain, but because I couldn’t comprehend it. My thoughts were drowning in a sea of ifs and maybes.
Maybe if I hadn’t spent that money… he could’ve gotten treatment.
Maybe if I’d hugged him more… maybe if I’d just said “I love you”…
But it wasn’t guilt I felt anymore — it was emptiness. A void so deep, even my screams couldn’t reach the bottom. Life turned black and white. When everyone else left the cemetery, I stayed behind and fell to my knees. Rain poured down, hiding my tears the same way it hid my shame.

He was a perfect grandfather.
And I never deserved him.

My mother — devastated. Our family had lost its guardian angel.

As I wept, I felt a strange weight press down on my shoulders. For a moment, I thought… maybe it’s him. Maybe he’s placing a hand on me from above. Maybe he’s telling me it’s okay. But when I looked… it was just a neem leaf.

I picked it up and placed it in my palm — small, fragile, like my hope.

But in that moment, something in me shifted.

I held it carefully, afraid to crush it — as if by holding it gently, I could somehow hold onto the last thread of grace left in me. The leaf was light, almost weightless, but it felt heavier than all my sins. It wasn’t just a leaf — it was a sign. Maybe from the skies, or maybe from my grandpa, watching me from somewhere far kinder than this world. It danced in my hands as the wind whispered, and for a brief moment, I felt like time waited — just for me.

My knees still rested on the earth, soaked in dirt and regret, but the storm inside me had paused. I looked up at the gray sky and exhaled, not as the coward who ran from life, but as someone who had finally realized he could no longer keep running.

That neem leaf… it reminded me of all the times he had quietly forgiven me. Of how he gave everything — including his health — without ever asking for a thank you. And all I ever did was take.

But not anymore.

I clenched the leaf gently in my fist. It didn’t crumble — it stayed whole. Like it was daring me to stay whole too.

“I promise,” I whispered. “I promise I’ll fight. I don’t know how… but I’ll find a way to become someone he’d be proud of. Someone who doesn’t run. Someone who doesn’t just take — but gives. I’ll fight, Grandpa. For you. For Mom. For me.”

The wind blew a little stronger, like the world was listening.

And for the first time in years… the ticking in my head didn’t scare me.
It steadied me.
Because now, I had something to march toward — not away from.