Sunsets

By MARGO JOHNSON

As I watched a sunset one evening, I realized sunsets serve as a passing, an ending, a completion, and this brought to my mind the commonalities of death and sunsets.

Will my death be a soft sunset, a raging storm sunset, a brightly hued sunset, a cloudy sunset, or one that simply ends with no clouds to color the horizon, and I will just drift off into the darkened sky?

Death marks a passing, one I’m not necessarily trying to rush toward, but the sun is certainly headed toward the evening horizon at a quicken pace these days. I’m powerless to do anything except allow my light to fade at a rate of its own ticking.

I’m not nervous about my personal sunset, when it will happen, will it be a quiet or a raucous one? But I am curious about what it will look like, and I hope it will be an experience I enjoy. I can think of nothing worse than dying unhappily with regrets, anger, unresolved issues, and no laughter sending me on my way.

It would be delightful if, as I sink below the surface of this life, I become a vivid and radiating color, marking this ending with an exclamation point. Some might prefer a quieter, more subdued finish, but I would like to be a sunset filling the evening sky with magnificent rainbow colors of oranges, reds, blues, greens, purples, pinks, and yellows. Perhaps that is what I hope to see as I begin a new journey to sites unknown.

I took a picture of a green field bordered by a line of dark green trees and a marvelous bank of clouds illuminating the sun’s rays as though they were sending a loved one off to a new destination, celebrating, waving, cheering.

That is the sunset I want to be. No regrets, just joy I have lived, and eagerness to awake facing a universe of more sunsets.