I saw fireflies after twenty years in the city

Dear Delyara, I grew up in a rural village where summer evenings were full of fireflies. After immigrating, I lived in apartments, worked nights, raised children, and slowly stopped thinking about them. Last weekend, my daughter took me camping for my sixtieth birthday. After sunset, small lights appeared above the grass. At first, I thought they were reflections from the campsite. Then one landed on my sleeve. I began crying so unexpectedly that my grandchildren thought the insect had bitten me. I had not seen a firefly since the year I left home. The sight returned my mother’s garden, my bare feet in warm dirt, my younger brothers chasing lights into jars, and a version of myself who had not yet learned the weight of leaving one country to survive in another. We did not catch any. I asked the children to leave them free. I sat outside long after everyone went to bed, watching tiny lights appear and vanish without needing to possess them to know they were real.