WHEN I dance to the music of the wind, laugh from the joy that fills my heart, and smile because the world looks so beautiful.

She stood in a field of wildflowers — a woman in her mid-forties, her lustrous hair ruffled by the wind, a glow on her cheeks and a spark in her brown eyes flecked with green. Stretching out her arms, she looked up at the sky and exulted, “I’m home!”

The field had decades ago been a pasture, and a smile played on her lips as she remembered the little girl who used to run and play among the cows, hugging the adorable calves.

“I remember Daisy, Lily, and Sunflower,” she said with a small laugh, happy tears misting in her eyes.

Her father had been a kind, hardworking farmer. Ten years ago, he had left this world — a day of great sorrow, for even the cows had fallen into silent mourning. As she stood by his pyre, she had cried quietly.
“I’m sorry I can’t stay to take care of the farm, Dad.”

Her two older brothers had long settled in America, working comfortable jobs in tech companies, with no desire to return home to the farm. Her mother refused to leave for life overseas, managing the farm with hired hands until illness made it impossible. The cows were sold, and Anjanie brought her mother to live with her in the UK. But homesickness and grief worsened her mother’s illness, and within a year, she too passed away.

Anjanie and her brothers had returned home to perform the final rites, placing their mother’s ashes beside their father’s. The house was closed, and the pasture abandoned.

Now, standing under the same sky, Anjanie looked upward and whispered, “It’s been so long. If you can hear me, Mum and Dad, your daughter is home again.”

A life far from home

She had once married a wealthy man abroad. A simple country girl at heart, she had tried to adapt to his high-society lifestyle — lavish parties, business trips, and a fast-paced existence that felt alien to her. But that glittering world eventually crumbled.

A routine check-up had revealed the unthinkable — breast cancer.

“How did this happen?” she had asked herself, numb and disbelieving. Her husband initially stayed close and supportive, but as treatment began and her body changed, so did his attention.

The pain, the weight loss, the loss of her lustrous hair — each day became a test of endurance. At night she would dream of a dark figure in the shadows, beckoning. “No!” she would whisper through tears. “Go away! I will survive.”

But the emotional blow came when her husband, after a weekend in Paris, looked at her and said coldly, “You’re not the same. You’ve lost your beauty, your spark for life.”

Those words cut deeper than the disease ever could. Yet, she did not cry for long. “If you can’t love me when I’m fighting for my life,” she thought, “then you don’t deserve my tears.”

A fight for survival

Treatment was brutal, but slowly, she began to heal. The nightmares stopped, replaced by dreams of home — of her father milking cows, her mother’s laughter in the kitchen, the smell of freshly baked roti and woodsmoke.

Each dream rekindled her will to live. “There’s still something beautiful waiting for me,” she told herself. And three years later, the doctors confirmed what she had long prayed for — the cancer was gone.

“That was the day life handed me a single fresh rose,” she said softly. “And I looked up to heaven and whispered, ‘Thank you, Lord.’”

Returning home

Her husband, by then, had found someone new and asked for a divorce. She didn’t resist. “I was free,” she said simply.

When she returned home, she found the old house dilapidated, the pasture overgrown. But instead of despair, she felt purpose. “I’ll bring it back,” she vowed.

She reconnected with relatives in Corentyne, sought advice, and began restoring the family land. The house was repaired, the fences mended, and the fields replanted.

With love and determination, she rebuilt everything herself.

She donated to the local temple, helped struggling families, and supported animal shelters. “I grew up with cows,” she often joked. “Never had house pets.”

Though she had once lived among the rich, she now found peace in simplicity. Her children checked in regularly, and even her ex-husband occasionally sent messages asking after her well-being.

“Well,” she would reply with a deep sigh, “I’m just fine.”

A new dawn

One morning, while preparing breakfast, a message arrived from her doctor in the UK, reminding her of her upcoming check-up. She paused, took a deep breath, and smiled. “Everything will be fine.”

Two weeks later, she packed her bags for the trip, already planning her return — the reopening of the pasture and Diwali preparations.

As the plane lifted from the runway, she gazed through the window and whispered, “I’m coming back home soon.”

To be continued.