Throughout the text, Darryl and Sunny confront their losses and learn how to grieve while continuing to live. They both struggle to cope with the loss of Sunny’s mother, Regina. For Darryl, her death means that he lost his life partner, with whom he had meticulously planned a future. For Sunny, he lost his mother before he ever had a chance to know her.

Darryl’s way of coping with this loss is to push Sunny away emotionally and pressure him to be a successful runner. He says “She didn’t get to do this. To run her race, Sunny” (90). Darryl puts pressure on Sunny to exert control over a situation Darryl feels he has lost control over. Darryl strives to make Sunny a living representation of his mother’s memory. Unfortunately, this pressure creates a wedge between Darryl and Sunny as Sunny realizes that he no longer wants to run.

It takes much of the narrative for Darryl to process the fact that Sunny is his own person with unique desires and dreams, and that Darryl’s actions have pushed Sunny away. Darryl admits to Sunny that “he didn’t feel like he could truly be a dad without my mother.