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| Today’s splendid sunset |
Over the past many months, I’ve found myself thinking about the afterlife a fair amount. Maybe it’s from having to explain to Vir where his grandads are. Or why I cry about them never being able to see them again. The permanency of death is hard to communicate to a four-year old. I’ve found an answer that’s been doing the job so far. They’re in the stars. Too far away, but they’re always watching over, they’re laughing at our antics, they’re happy in the stars.
Today, the absolutely gorgeous sunset stole my heart but also tugged at my heart a bit. My dad was a complete sunset junkie. The kind that would drive miles on vacation for the perfect sunset point. The kind who’d wait till he saw the sun go right in and then trudge back to the car in the dark. The one who’d plan travels and hotels around where the best sunset view was. He was never a sunrise person - Waking early is a quality neither he nor I have. We make up for sunrises with catching as many sunsets as we can. I remember the last week with him, when we were on vacation by the ocean and we caught a few sunsets together. He had just gotten the handy cam and he filmed several minutes of the sun going down, with us chattering away in the background. It didn’t matter to him - He was intently watching. I’d probably be a million times more aware of my last few days with him and catch every sunset every single day together, only if I knew.
Today I got thinking - What if sunsets are how our departed loved ones find us. Do they send the sun every day to watch over us and retreat when the day is over. Is the sunset our way of saying Good bye to our loved ones every single day. The sun brings hope for a new day, brings warmth of their hugs, signals us to rest every evening, may not even be visible on a terribly cloudy day (which we have more than our share of in Bengaluru), but always shows up the next day. The sun is probably how my dad’s been coming back to me every single day since he left. Is the sunrise him waking me up because I’ll be late for school again. And the sunset him reminding me to slow down and soak in the lovely sky.
You know how you sometimes land up at a place and it feels like you’ve been there always, even if it’s the first time you ever set foot there. The sunset feels that level of familiar, not just because it’s something I’ve grown up with (of course, duh!). But, it has a way to warm my heart every time I watch it retreat - in all its glory, colouring up the sky with more colours than any Crayola could. For those few minutes, it feels exclusively mine.
There’s magic in every sunset - For me, it will always be a piece of my dad that I get back every single day.
Another beauty in the last few months 
The ocean sunsets hit different
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