The Sunrise Pact

The Sunrise Pact

By Abdul Muhammad

When we first married, we promised to never miss a sunrise together.

It was a silly vow, really — made in the pink haze of honeymoon mornings when everything felt possible and eternal. On our last day in the seaside cottage, while the sky was still bruised with night, you wrapped your arms around me and whispered, “Let’s always meet the sun together. No matter where we are, we’ll watch it rise.”

I remember laughing. I said you’d probably oversleep, that you were more of a coffee-after-nine person than a dawn-chaser. But you smiled that boyish smile — the one that always made me believe the world was lighter than it was — and said, “Then you’ll have to wake me up. That’s part of the pact.”

For years, I did.

Our first apartment faced east. Every morning, we’d climb out of our warm bed and squeeze onto the tiny balcony, coffee mugs in hand, watching the horizon catch fire. Sometimes we didn’t say anything. Other mornings, we planned our whole lives there — what color to paint the kitchen, how many kids we’d have, the trips we’d take. We thought time was endless, and that love, once found, would never bend under its weight.

But time bends everything.

The first missed sunrise happened on a Tuesday. You had an early meeting; I had an exam. I remember thinking, It’s fine. Just this once. But that “once” became twice, then a week, then a season.

We still loved each other — that wasn’t the problem. It’s just that life started to hum louder than love for a while. There were bills to pay, promotions to chase, dinners to cook, and nights spent too tired to talk. We began to move around each other instead of with each other, like planets sharing the same orbit but no longer touching.

Once, I tried to wake you. It was midwinter. I had made tea and lit a candle on the kitchen counter, hoping we could watch the pale sun climb behind the frosted windows. But you mumbled something about “just five more minutes,” and rolled over. I watched alone that morning, the silence pressing against my chest.

Still, I kept the pact quietly. Not every day, but often. I’d step outside just before dawn, wrapped in your old flannel shirt, and watch the sky shift from indigo to gold. I told myself that somewhere — even if you were asleep — part of you was watching with me.

Then came the years of distance. Not the dramatic kind, but the slow, ordinary kind that creeps in unnoticed. We became polite roommates more than lovers, bound by shared groceries and gentle habits. Sometimes I’d glance at you across the dinner table and wonder when we’d stopped seeing each other clearly.

You still kissed me goodbye every morning. You still asked if I’d eaten lunch. But the warmth was mechanical, like muscle memory — something the heart had forgotten but the body remembered out of habit.

And yet, I stayed. Because that’s what love often looks like after the first act — less fireworks, more quiet persistence.

Then one morning, the call came.

I can’t recall every detail — only the sound of my own breathing when the nurse said your name, the words “accident” and “instant,” and how the cup of tea I was holding slipped through my fingers, shattering into a thousand little suns across the kitchen floor.

For a long time, I couldn’t bear to see the dawn. I’d close the curtains tight each night, afraid of that cruel, indifferent light. How could the sun rise again when you wouldn’t?

But grief is strange — it doesn’t vanish; it reshapes you. Months later, I found myself drawn back to that same balcony. It was the first of April. The air smelled faintly of rain and the world felt almost soft again. I don’t know what made me do it — maybe muscle memory, maybe longing — but I poured a cup of coffee and stood there, waiting.

The sky was gray at first. Then a pale pink ribbon unfurled across the horizon, followed by gold, then fire. It was breathtaking, just as it used to be.

And in that silence, I felt you there. Not as a ghost or memory, but as a presence woven into the light itself. I realized then that our pact was never about watching the sunrise. It was about being awake for it — for each new beginning, even after the endings we didn’t choose.

So now, I keep the promise for both of us.

Every morning, I rise before the world stirs. I make two cups of coffee out of habit — one for me, one for you — and step outside to greet the dawn. Sometimes I whisper to you about the small things: the neighbor’s new puppy, the lavender finally blooming, how your favorite mug still has that tiny crack near the handle.

And sometimes, I just stand in the quiet, letting the light spill over my face, thinking of all the mornings we missed and all the ones we still share in ways unseen.

People often ask me why I wake up so early. I tell them it’s for peace, for clarity. But the truth is simpler — it’s for love.

Because love, I’ve learned, isn’t about being beside someone every moment. It’s about carrying their warmth into every sunrise, even when they’re gone. It’s about keeping promises not because you must, but because they remind you who you were when the world felt new.

As the sun lifts higher, the sky blushes with gold — the same gold you once said made everything look “hopeful.” I smile, raise my cup, and whisper, “I’m here. We made it.”

And in that instant, the world feels whole again.