The Sun Rises in the East

                                                            The Sun Rises in the East


    I remember a sunrise to put all others to shame. It was on the morning my son was born, and yet I remember it like it was yesterday. I had left the house as was only proper at the time, men not being welcomed at the birthing beds. My stomach in knots with nervousness, my heart heavy with concern for my love.
   
      I sat on the old tree stump outside the house trying to close out the sounds of pain and struggle coming from within without much success. The darkness of the night slowly giving way to the soft glow of morning, light spreading through the trees, a golden burst on the horizon. As the sun itself broke nights dark hold I heard the tearing scream that signaled the end to pain and the beginning of life. A smile spread over my face as I heard the cries of my son welcoming his first day. The midwife placed my still screaming babe into my arms. I turned with my son to face the coming day and the beginning of a life worth living.

    I remember my last sunrise, for it is the last time I held my love close to my heart. She had been dying for a long time, her once radiant beauty now faded to but a shadow. Her once glowing eyes now dulled with pain. We sat on the porch watching the sun rise over the trees, the shadows reaching out towards us like the dark fingers of death. I heard her throat closing in a last gasped breath and I knew it was over before it truly had begun.
   
    I lost myself that morning along with she that meant the world to me, and nothing in this world could ever heal my torn heart. I spent weeks stumbling from tavern to tavern trying my best to drink the pain away, but in the morning it always seemed to be there waiting for me. Until that fateful night I met HIM. He sat at a corner table in my most recent sanctuary, hidden in a voluminous cloak that made him seem almost a shadow amongst the shadows.
   
    His eyes sought out mine and I read an answer to my pain buried within them. He smiled a cold smile and beckoned me over. I accepted, and that is when my life changed forever. His answer, you see, has lasted me from that day to this. The world has changed and the people with it. My son is gone and his son also, leaving the world without a trace that I ever existed at all. I have outlasted it all, Revolution, Civil war, Great Depressions, everything I have seen and yet it all passed me by like a dream. Only one thing has lived as long as I, for I brought it with me into this eternal night. My pain has been with me every step of the way, cold company through a cold existence. The answer I found turned out to be no answer at all.
   
      I go now to watch another sunrise, first and last I suppose, though nothing to compare to my first. You see, the sunrise is the true answer to my pain and with it I shall burn away that which I can no longer bare. I’ve always known, the Sun Rises in the East.