text: The Sunsets of My Life Edy Stoughton I never feel more alive and vivid than when I am standing in front of a glorious sunset. It fills me up with wonder. My breathing slows and my speech is stilled when I am engulfed in those glorious, sky-filling colors. Glowing in my memory, sunsets have marked and defined the milestones of my life and ordered my times and seasons. They have been celestial companions on my journey. Growing up in the suburbs of a Midwestern city, sunsets weren’t part of my experience. Ever-expanding housing developments and 8 lane expressways aren’t an impressive framework for a colorful sky so days ended and nights came on with little fanfare and nothing to mark their passage. My love affair with sunsets began when we rented a summer cottage on Northern Lake Michigan. Gathering my sand-gritted, sunburned little children for bed, I was shocked when the sky lit up and I stood transfixed in the midst of gathering towels and sand shovels. A panorama of deepest oranges blending to muted yellows and brilliant rose blazed over the lake. We all stood unmoving, awestruck. From that day as the children grew from toddlers to teens, sunset watching was our end-of-day ritual every summer vacation at that same cabin. As the colors began to appear we would gather in awe, faces turned to the horizon, celebrating the end of the day. It was communal worship as all down the beach people appeared, standing silently, wine glasses in hand until the last flash of the sun ‘s rim slipped below the lake. Not a sound could be heard--even nature was hushed in that moment at the edge of night. And then a collective sigh was heard marking the official end of the day, sharing gratitude for the gift of another day, hope for a good tomorrow and thanks for the beauty surrounding us. The last sunset was the final good bye for another year and a time for tears as it marked the closing off of another blissful space of time out of the ordinary. Throughout the years sunsets have been my mainstay and never-failing source of joy. My sunset experiences trail markers of the changes in my life. There was the year we visited my son away at college in California and he piled us in his jeep racing time to get to Sunset Cliffs in Mission Beach to watch the sun descend into the Pacific Ocean. Knowing my long-term love affair with sunsets, he was determined that I experience that famous vantage point regardless of traffic and as we stood on the cliff with the breeze in our faces calming us my son turned to me saying “This is for you Mom.” The years passed and we settled on the shores of Lake Michigan to live our dream. It was no longer a vacation place, but home. Grandchildren took the place of children in the sun-drenched days of summer and the tradition continues. Standing at our deck railing making a wish on the sun’s last rays is a nightly ritual. Each child has his or her traditional way of ending the day, unique to them. On evenings when we are preoccupied with dinner or conversation, a grandchild's voice can be heard crying, "Hurry, it's almost time...we're going to miss it!" And the thunder of feet and slamming of screen doors herald that the magic moment has arrived. Standing with my arms wrapped around the little ones and sitting peacefully in an Adirondack chair talking quietly, or just sitting in unspoken companionship, in the evening glow beside my beautiful teen aged granddaughter are all priceless moments that I will stay with me forever. The tradition goes on even when we are not together, a ritual of memory and nostalgia that links us through time and space. Recently I received a photo in my email account of two of my granddaughters arm in arm standing in front of a window. My daughter explained that they were in a restaurant in Park City, Utah on a ski vacation and as the sun started to set, the girls rushed to the window to make a wish on the sunset in honor of all the wishes we had shared. I worry about our inability to find our rightful place in the cosmos and our lack of stewardship and care for the natural world. I worry about the world we are leaving our children and grandchildren. And yet, it is my hope that a sunset is the way of saying the world will go on. These days I mostly stand alone in front of the setting sun. I can enjoy the completely silent sunsets of winter as well as those of the summer skies. When the ice-covered lake is edged by towering giant pines etched against the winter sky, the colors are deeper, richer and more austere in deep violet and royal blue. I am alone and yet I am not lonely. It is just me and the lake and the sky communing in quiet intimacy. In some ways it is better than ever. I have more to be grateful for and think about. I have never gotten over that first shock and awe I felt at that first view of the sky’s glory. It is strangely comforting to know that I am only a small part of the vast illimitable universe and yet the eternal spark within me is intimately and infinitely connected to all that vastness--part of the eternally flowing river of time. So much is changing in my life as I enter a new stage and yet the evening sky is constant and unchanging, a lodestar in my life and as the sky lights up, I feel cradled in the deep heart of eternity. Standing at the edge of the vast Lake Michigan with lighthouses blinking in the distance I know the truth of words I read recently that said our souls are the lighthouse from which we view the vast celestial ocean. The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. I never want it to end. And yet when I feel frightened about what is to come at the end of my life and nostalgic about the winding down of my years on this earth, I am comforted by knowing that I will find out what the view is like on the other side of that beautiful sunset and I will be part of the glory.