Sunny

“When I was a little kid and was all yelly-yelly and Darryl wanted me to be more hushy-hushy, he gave me you and told me to put the noise on your pages whenever I felt like I needed to, which was all the time except for when I was running or sleeping.”

Sunny explains the origins of his diary, which also reveals early on the strained relationship with his father, Darryl. This is the first time Sunny mentions Darryl, and it is not clear at first that Darryl is Sunny’s father. Calling him “Darryl” shows the distance between them. Sunny reveals that his father is the one who gave him the diary originally to process his thoughts privately rather than aloud. While Darryl giving Sunny a journal in part shows a sense of care for Sunny’s mental state after his mother’s passing, Sunny internalizes this to mean that Darryl doesn’t want Sunny to bother him and to be more “hushy-hushy.” This solidifies the awkwardness and distance between Sunny and Darryl that they spend the rest of the narrative unlearning. 

“You take the hunger-growl out of my mind. And once I got to a place where the growling was pretty much a purr, I stopped writing in you. But now the volume on the growl is turning up again.”

Sunny is a creative thinker who often uses metaphors and similes to describe the world around him. Here, he compares his anxieties and sadness after his mother’s death to a “hunger-growl,” which increases in proportion to his anxiety. By explaining that the “volume on the growl” is increasing again, Sunny reveals that he is experiencing mental anguish and needs an external way to process his feelings again. 

“Making sense makes no sense to me. Sense should kinda already be made, right? It should already exist like love, or maybe sky. You don’t have to create it or choreograph it or nothing like that.”

Sunny suggests that people understand the world by encountering it and experiencing it, rather than constructing sense or meaning. By saying one does not have to create or choreograph sense alludes to Sunny’s growing interest in dance, as well as articulating that sense exists independently of one’s perception of it. 

“Ships passing in the night. She’s not here because I am. Because of me. Because something is wrong with me, Diary, which made something wrong with her.”

Sunny compares himself and his mother to ships passing in the night. Despite Sunny’s mother carrying Sunny for nine months during pregnancy, they never got to know each other. This quote shows the extent to which Sunny blames himself for his mother’s death. He goes as far as to believe that something is inherently wrong with him, which he often alludes to in saying that he is weird. 

“Do you know what it feels like to feel like a murderer? I do. At least I did back then. And I still do. Sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, Darryl has never called me that or said anything like that [...] But he’s always telling me over and over again that I owe it to my mother to accomplish her dreams of being a marathon winner. For her. Not just a runner, a winner.”

This quote gives further insight into Sunny’s state of mine about his mother’s death. He says that he understands what it means to feel like a murderer at 12 years old, and that he continues to struggle with this emotionally, even though he rationally understands that he was not at fault. This quote also sets up the pressure Darryl puts on Sunny to run, despite Sunny’s waning interest in the sport. Darryl views Sunny’s life as not entirely his own; because of his mother’s death, Darryl believes Sunny’s life needs to honor her, and in fact owes it to her. Even though Sunny is adamant that Darryl has never blamed Sunny for his mother’s death, Sunny feels an enormous weight to live up to Darryl’s expectations of him because he feels responsible for his mother’s death. 

“The chair. It’s soft purple, and leans back, and Darryl’s always lint-rolling it, and brushing its bulky arms softly with the palms of his hands, like patting a son that’s made him proud.”

Sunny describes a chair that Darryl and his mother bought back when they were younger in anticipation of Sunny’s mother opening a therapist practice. Darryl views the chair as a way of feeling connected to his deceased wife, and Sunny describes the care with which Darryl treats the chair, and Sunny is jealous. He watches Darryl brush the arms of the chair and imagines Darryl views it as a son “that’s made him proud,” which implies that Sunny does not. It also suggests that Darryl and Sunny have little physical contact as well.

“When we got home, I ran upstairs to change my clothes and kiss my discus. Not sure why, but I kind of just feel like it needs to know I love it if it’s going to work with me. If we’re going to do this thing together.”

Sunny projects some of his feelings of anxiety and inadequacy in his relationship with Darryl onto his discus. When Sunny makes the difficult decision to quit running, it is one of the first times Sunny chooses to do something for himself and not because it is what his father wants him to do. Sunny wants to feel that he has made the right choice to take up discus and therefore feels kinship with the discus itself. He wants to view the discus as an extension of himself so that they can work together as a team to reach success. One could interpret this as Sunny playing out the way he wishes his father would interact with him. Rather than viewing each other as teammates, Sunny and Darryl shy away from one another. They are in the same situation but have yet to learn how to work together. 

“He always used to tell me that he wanted to make sure I knew her. At least, her face. Her smile. And I did. I do. I have to figure out how to make her—how to put it together—all the time.”

Despite their strained relationship, Darryl shows he cares for Sunny by beginning the tradition of doing puzzles each night that show a picture of Sunny’s mother when put together. Darryl struggles to communicate his love for Sunny, but this is a tangible way he shows that he cares and wants Sunny to still feel connected to his mother although she is no longer alive. Sunny gets to know his mother in a different yet meaningful way—he must figure out how to “make” her and create an image of her every day. 

“What I said was: And she was also a dancer. So, I’d rather move.”

When Darryl encouraged Sunny to begin running, he did so because he wanted Sunny to carry on his mother’s legacy and feel connected to her. When Sunny learns from Aurelia that his mother was also a dancer and begins dancing with Aurelia, Sunny finds a new way of connecting with the mother he never got to know. In learning about his mother’s connection to dance, Sunny realizes that people are multifaceted. This encourages him to take the leap into trying something new on his track team. 

“When the music comes on, he starts bopping around and jamming in the bed, as if he’s trying to break loose, break free. And maybe he is. It is like he understands what dancing is for. It’s not just to watch, it’s to do, to somehow remind yourself that you’re still… you.”

Sunny describes his favorite patient at the hospital where Gramps works, Mr. Rufus. Mr. Rufus is bedridden but used to dance and perform on Soul Train. Whenever Sunny and Aurelia go to the hospital to dance, Mr. Rufus takes part from his bed. This quote illustrates an important learning moment for Sunny: that just because someone has changed it does not mean they cease to be the person they have always been. Mr. Rufus is evidence of this, because while he cannot dance like he used to, movement and dance are still important to him. 

“I’m not freaked out from hearing him cry. Crying is crying like laughing is laughing like sense don’t ever have to be made because it just is [...] Anyway, what I’m trying to say is hearing my father cry is normal.”

After hearing his father crying in his bedroom, Sunny explains that this is a normal occurrence. Darryl cries all the time at moments both big and small, which shows the depth of sorrow he still feels about his wife’s death. Anniversaries, birthdays, and everyday moments are a constant reminder of who is missing in their family. Sunny is not disturbed or surprised to hear his father cry because, like the never-ending weight of loss, it is so normal to him. 

“Aurelia said what she thought, which was, everything is moving. Everything. Even the things that aren’t are, because the world is moving. It’s spinning, so everything is changing constantly. Her, me, Darryl, and even you. And that somehow everything is still connected.”

Aurelia explains to Sunny what she thinks the film Baraka is about. This is a profound moment for Sunny; the film and Aurelia’s explanation introduce him to huge concepts like the vastness of the world, as well as the fact that even in a world as huge as Earth, everything moves, shifts, changes, and affects everything else. Aurelia’s explanation is a hopeful one—that although things are always changing, including people, they stay connected to one another. She mentions herself, Sunny, and Darryl, and this foreshadows that Sunny and Darryl will be able to change their relationship to one another and become closer. 

“As long as I kept winning, right? And even when I do, you tell me it’s not good enough. My form was this, my stride was that, my breathing is off, breathe, Sunny. Breathe. That’s what you say? You say I have to breathe, but I can’t. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”

Sunny tells Darryl how his actions have affected him. For years, Sunny has listened to Darryl tell him that his performance on the track is not good enough and that he must do everything to honor his mother’s memory. One thing Darryl often repeats is a reminder to Sunny to “breathe,” which in this quote Sunny turns back on Darryl. Sunny tells Darryl that his constant reminders and corrections are metaphorically suffocating him. The more Darryl tells him to breathe, the heavier the pressure becomes, and the more choked Sunny feels under the weight of Darryl’s impossible expectations. 

“Gramps pointed to what looked like a whoosh of wind, which was apparently a bulging belly, and said that was me.”

Gramps gives Sunny a photograph of his mother on the day of her baby shower. In the photograph, it takes Sunny a moment to realize that he is also in the photo, in his mother’s belly. Sunny describes her pregnant belly at first as a “whoosh of wind,” which foreshadows Sunny’s interest in dance and the movement Sunny makes when throwing discus, which Coach and Sunny both refer to as the “whoosh” movement. 

“She wanted to dance, even though she could barely move because of her belly. Aurelia said my mother wanted me to know what happiness felt like, no matter what, from the inside out. I stared at the photo. her face. My face in hers. My body in hers. Baraka, all over again.”

Aurelia recalls the memory of his mother’s baby shower day and shows Sunny how much his mother loved him. It is a powerful moment because Sunny has no other memories or images of him and his mother together; he often feels disconnected from her as a result, but to see himself in her shows their connection. The image reminds him of Baraka and the idea that everything is connected.

“If only you hadn’t given up on me. On us. I’m sorry. I don’t mean that. I know you didn’t. Did you?”

Sunny expresses momentary anger and resentment towards his mother for “giving up” on him because she died. He at once apologizes, but the quote shows his lingering uncertainty and anxiety. He says he knows that she did not give up on him, but the quote ends on a note of uncertainty. So many of the questions he has about his mother and what life would be like if she was still alive will go unanswered, because she is not there to answer them. This quote shows Sunny sitting with that uncomfortable realization. 

“I wish. Stuff [...] maybe just a hug. Maybe a kiss on the forehead like how I kissed my discus. But I’m not as cold or as hard. And neither are you. I wish you knew that. I wish you knew I know that.”

Sunny writes a diary entry addressed to Darryl, in which he expresses what he wishes their relationship could be like. He writes to Darryl that he wishes he were more affectionate, and that he would show him that he loves him. Sunny makes the comparison to how he kisses his discus to show it that they are on the same team and need to work together, just like he wants Darryl to do. Despite these wishes, Sunny also acknowledges that Darryl is not as “cold or hard” as he portrays himself to be. Sunny writes that he wishes he and his father could admit this to each other and move past the hurdles in their relationship. 

“I definitely don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh that loud, and for that long. It actually sounded kind of painful. Like a bad cough. Like hacking and hacking and hacking up something he’d been choking on for a long time.”

Darryl laughs when Sunny spits out his first taste of coffee. Sunny expects Darryl to be mad but is surprised to see Darryl begin laughing. The sound is foreign for Sunny and seems to be unfamiliar for Darryl as well. Sunny describes the sound like a hacking cough, something that has been stuck inside Darryl for years without any reason to come out. Now that it has, it is like Darryl releases something that he has been choking on, finally able to breathe again. 

“Darryl talked about how Gramps wanted him to be a doctor too. How he always said, saving a life is always more important than saving a dollar.”

Darryl reveals that he too experienced pressure from his father, much like the pressure he put on Sunny. Darryl, a businessman, often uses business-related language like “return on investment.” Darryl admits that his father wanted him to become a doctor like himself, because it was more important to save people than money. This implies that Darryl, although he places similar pressure on Sunny, understands what it is like to not live up to someone’s expectations. This plays a role in Darryl’s ability to hear and internalizes Sunny’s desire to not run anymore, and to begin to explore his own interests and pursuits once Sunny shares them. It is not an immediate change, but this quote shows that Darryl can empathize with Sunny, and therefore change to be more supportive of his son’s wants. 

“Just smiled because it was cool that she believed in me like that. That they all did. But the truth is, I’m not sure I even really care about winning at all.”

Sunny’s friends at track, Patty, Lu, and Ghost, consistently show up to support him. The night before his first track meet as a discus thrower, Patty tells Sunny that she is sure he will win first place, like he always did in the mile. Sunny does not necessarily agree but reflects on how grateful he feels that people around him believe in him. He also realizes here that winning is no longer the most important thing to him, and that he would rather enjoy the experience without the pressure of trying to win first place. Since quitting running, Sunny feels more like his authentic self, and feels closer to his father and to his friends as a result. This quote illustrates that this feeling of confidence and contentment in himself is more important than a ribbon. 

“He said he didn’t feel like he could truly be a dad without my mother. And that it just didn’t feel right. Like, I’m his son and he’s my father, but she would never be able to hear me call her Mom, so he just felt like it was unfair for him to be called Dad.”

Darryl explains why he did not want to be called Dad, which reveals the depth of his own insecurities about being a single father. Darryl shows the value that he places on their family as a complete unit, and how resentful he feels that he and Sunny never got to experience that. It also implies that Darryl does not resent or blame Sunny, but that the way he holds Sunny at a distance is because of his own insecurities and feelings of inadequacy. 

“And none of that’s as big of a deal as me sometimes climbing into my baby crib, since it’s still in my room. But I wasn’t ready to talk about that yet.”

Sunny writes earlier in the novel that his baby crib stays in his room, which implies that Darryl never thought to get rid of it. The fact that Sunny climbs into the crib every so often illustrates a desire to return to infancy and seek out the comfort of childhood that he did not get to experience. Sunny states that he is not ready to excavate the deeper meaning of this yet, which implies that while Sunny has made huge strides in his development, he still has work to do to unpack his childhood trauma. 

“And then he said that when I step into that circle, and I do that weird spin, and I let that discus go, don’t think about him, or the team, or even my mother. He told me to let it go for me.”

Darryl gives advice to Sunny in advance of his first track meet as a discus thrower. This quote illustrates Darryl’s growth in his support of Sunny. For all of Sunny’s life, Darryl has pressured him to run and perform well for his mother, because her dreams were cut short. When Sunny originally tells Darryl that he has quit running, Darryl is upset. As Darryl and Sunny become closer and understand each other better, Darryl can put aside his own wishes for Sunny’s life and let Sunny make his own choices and realize his own dreams. The fact that he tells Sunny to throw the discus for himself alone shows Darryl’s growth and change.