She left too soon. But somehow, she never quite left.At ten years old, Mohan's world split in two: before and after his mother's death. What followed was a childhood pieced together from fragments-snatches of laughter, sudden tears, and the quiet courage she had asked of him in her final moments. From the restless hum of Calcutta's streets to the stillness of Kerala's backwaters, You Told Me to Be Brave traces a boy's journey through absence, resilience, and the unexpected places where love chooses to remain. This is not grief told in grey, but in colour-the warm ochres of memory, the bright flashes of humour, and the stubborn light of survival. Told with lyrical honesty and a storyteller's eye for detail, it is less a tale of loss than a love letter: to endurance, to finding yourself in the echoes of those you've lost, and to the small, defiant act of smiling when the world expects you to break.Every human being has a story that refuses to stay silent. This is that story.