Twilight Time

Twilight Time

“Heavenly shades of light are falling…”

I loved singing this song when I was little when the impending night brought a creeping sadness, the endless miles of desert road stretching out in front of that Olds ’98. My mother would wonder why I would cry while I sang. “Are you car sick?” I would shake my head and try unsuccessfully to explain why the end of the day brought tears.

My interior landscape was held hostage by anxiety. Unsure of what I was feeling, I decided that I must have been the victim of a car accident in a previous life. Perhaps this horrific end to my prior earthly existence took place around sundown and I happened to be the unfortunate passenger in the back of a large, American sedan. I held so strongly to this belief that I finally had to make my mind up that if I were indeed snatched from my former life through a vehicular collision then I certainly would not meet the same end in this life.  

Recently, as we drove west into the sunset, I glanced back at my children buckled safely in their seats. In my head I started to hum that childhood tune and again sadness flooded in. I thought of those days on the road with my parents and brother when I would worry what the next day would bring or if the next day would come at all.

Then, I remembered a time when I was about 7 years old and I woke in the back of our car at dawn to find my father standing outside and observing the sunrise. My mother and brother lapped on top of one another in the front seat. I got out of the car at the scenic overlook that was our motel for the night and approached my dad. We watched as the sun rose above the mountains. I noticed that my father had a tear in his eye. As a child this only added to my confusion but as an adult it feels poignant.

A moment of profound connection.

A completion of a loop.

My tears shed at the end of the day and my father’s at the beginning.

Perhaps this is how God works, entering our awareness at vulnerable times and creating deep meaning through darkness and light.

I still wonder about my previous life but if the end of that one opened the door to this one, I am endlessly thankful.