His love is like the Sun. It never lets you down. Or any of us.
While sitting in the quieter and woody section of the park, on one of many comfortable concrete benches, enjoying the calm, cool breeze, the wind blows these words to me.
“I don’t understand, Mom. You always said he was your Sunrise and Sunset. More than fifty years later, the Sun is still shining, rising, and setting, and you two are fighting like enemies. You moved out and took all of his sunshine. Where did all of your love go, Mom?”
Following the wind’s direction with my eyes and ears within earshot, I saw sadness in the eyes of an elderly woman facing a younger woman. The pain in her eyes and the sadness that gave her caramel-coloured face a darker hue touched my heart.
I said a silent prayer for her happiness.
I was the only one sitting on the bench, so I slowly eased closer to the other side.
The daughter continued, “I remembered when I was a child, and he would work nights. Before you go to bed, you would worry and pray for him to come home safely. In the mornings, you look outside, and if you see the sun rising, you smile and say thanks. Then say, ‘he is safe.’ And the Sun would never let you down.”
She wiped her eyes with a white handkerchief from a brown bag to her left, then complained, “It hasn’t, but he has.”
“How can he, when he never stopped loving you? Like the sun, his love never stops. Even when it’s shining far away, its heart is here because it returns the next day.”
“He is no longer shining,” she went on.
“Look around you,” her daughter encouraged. “His love is like the Sun. It never lets you down. Or any of us. Many days, it must fight clouds, climate change, weather, Pollution, and everything else humanity uses to get rich and harm our earth, but it always finds ways to let us know it’s here.
Dad was your sunshine. As a police officer, he served the people. Like the Sun, he does his job for the people. Then come home and do his job for his family. The sun sets here, and while we sleep, it rises somewhere else, again serving others. Yes, he might be doing more setting than rising, but his love for you hasn’t changed, Mom. You used to say that there will be hope as long as there is a sunrise. You used to say that the Sun is hope, and hope is in a Sunrise.”
She stared at her daughter in shock, tears reeling down her cheeks. Her daughter reached over and hugged her, and easing from her embrace, she asked, “What else do you remember?”
Smiling, the daughter continues, “I remember you would hold hands and watch the Sunset before he goes to work. He would kiss you goodbye and say, ‘I will be back tomorrow like a sunrise, I promise.’ He said a Sunrise for Hope and a Sunset is a promise, and that’s what his love for you is. Did you ever think that he might not come back tomorrow?”
Her mother’s eyes popped open, and she continued before her mother could go on, “Can you imagine a day without a Sunrise, Mom? The Sun is a Symbol of hope.”
Her mother closed her eyes, her lips trembling, she tried to speak, but tears held her for a brief moment, then she revealed after the tears permitted her to go on, “I have had a few cloudy days, and I didn’t like it. Being away from him is like a day without the warmth and love of the Sun.”
“Look, Mom,” her daughter said, pointing towards the sun as it slowly slipped behind one of the huge Oak trees in the park. “The Sun hasn’t set yet; there is enough time for us to get home, and you can make your promises like a sunset.”
God answered my prayers.
The old lady smiled, and I saw happiness on her face and eyes as she wiped away her tears. She rose from the bench and complimented, “You are a good and wise daughter. I know the Sun shines with hope. For the week I have left, the Sun shone brightly every day. Even when the weather forecast said Cloudy and Overcast, it was trying to tell me that love, like the sun, has many elements that must be fought with but will never lose its luster.”
“So you going back home?”
“Yes, princess, I am. My days without him have been cloudy. It’s time to get back my sunrise and sunset.”
No two sunsets and sunrises are the same. Just like our love for each other is different. Love is like a sunrise and sunset, as there are many elements that they all must fight. The sun might not be shining on the outside today because of weather and other things, but it shines brightly with Hope when it returns the next day.
Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it.
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