The Last Sunset

It's a little blurry and not the best composition. The sky it captured was not the most spectacular. But this snapshot has become one of my most favorite. When I look at it, I go back to an autumn evening a quarter of a century ago.

I had the fridge door open with my head inside as I rummaged through the uninteresting bottles of dressings nestled amid stacks of Tupperware, pushing them aside and hoping to find something that looked appetizing. Nothing piqued my interest and I was about to give up when the jingling summons of the telephone interrupted my musings. I shut the door and reached over to pick the handset up off the cradle attached to the wall. My father's number scrolled across the little digital screen on the black handset sparking my curiosity as I clicked the talk button.

“Hey, you should go look out the back door,” as usual he jumped straight to the point as soon as I said hello. Obediently, I turned around and crossed the kitchen to the sliding glass door as he continued. “The sky looks so stunning, I just really wanted to share this sunset with someone else.”

I pulled back the vertical blinds to be greeted by the most beautiful scene. I slid open the door and stepped outside to get a better view. The clouds over the West mountains glistened brilliantly silver against a mosaic of bright orange, intoxicating hot pink, sultry purple, and deep blue. Streamers of shimmering yellow white light pierced through the sky in a luminous halo bathing the peaks below in a vibrant scarlet glow.

“Wow!” I exclaimed. “That is incredible! I don't think I've ever seen such a colorful sunset before.”

Daddy laughed, “Yeah, it's probably because of the smoke from all the wildfires. But it sure is pretty. Anyway, I didn't want it to pass without sharing it with you.”

“It's beautiful. Thank you Daddy.”

It was a simple moment shared between a father and daughter despite being separated by a few miles but it would forever change the way I saw sunsets. A few months later, I went off to college and moved nearly a hundred miles away to the town I would eventually come to call home. Daddy and I would rarely be together to enjoy the spray of colors across the sky at the end of each day. Yet when I caught a sunset it took me back to that autumn evening years earlier when I got an unexpected phone call and an invitation to look out the back door. Every tie-dyed sky whispered that somewhere out there it was beaming just as brightly for Daddy to enjoy as it was for me, a daily reminder that Daddy was never that far away. If it was particularly stunning I would send a quick text, Did you see that sunset tonight?

It was many years and thousands of sunsets later that I found myself in the passenger seat of my car, headed down I-15 to visit Daddy. I looked out the window to see the painted indigo sky streaked with glowing gold, soft peach, delicate rose, and hints of soft lavender. I remembered my last phone call with Daddy who had been in the hospital for nearly a month now. He had lamented that the view from his window was of the roof of the parking garage. The realization that Daddy could not see this sunset seemed utterly unfair so I took out my cell phone and snapped three photos. None turned out great; they were a little hazy and had power lines in the way. But it was the best I could manage at 80 miles per hour.

It seemed a little silly at the time and my husband laughed a bit when I told him what I was doing. But then I shared the story of an autumn evening 25 years earlier and how it changed sunsets for me. He gave my hand a light squeeze and offered me a half smile.

My husband took Momma to dinner while I sat with Daddy for the next couple of hours. He had never been one to fill the silence with unnecessary banter and in his weakened state it was harder for him to carry on a conversation. So I talked about the boys and my new responsibilities at church. We reminisced about the first time he'd stayed in this hospital thirty years before and lamented its pending closure. When I ran out of interesting topics we sat in silence. Then I remembered my pictures.

“I knew you wouldn't be able to see tonight's sunset,” I told him, “so I took some photos so I could share it with you. They're not that good, we were driving. But…” I held my phone for him and swiped through the snapshots.

Daddy smiled, “It's beautiful. Thank you. It's been too long since I've seen a sunset.”

All too soon, visiting hours drew to an end. The doctor expected to release Daddy in the morning so when I hugged him goodbye I told him we'd bring the boys down tomorrow after he got home.

“That'd be nice,” his smile seemed more tired than made me comfortable.

The next morning he coughed and his lung collapsed. Instead of going home, they moved him to the ICU where only Momma was permitted to visit him.

Twelve days later I returned to the hospital to sit at his side one final time in an ICU room with no view from the window.

He never saw another sunset.

This photo was his last.

I still love to see the rainbow of colors that flood the evening sky as the sun slides off to bed. The sun's brilliant farewell still whispers to me that it's shining for Daddy, too, wherever his spirit might be wandering. It's a daily reminder that even now we're never really that far apart. And today when I see a particularly stunning sunset, I think back on a long ago Autumn evening, then I call my son so I can still share the moment with someone special.