Wake Up!

The old man let us stay the night. We weren't sure if we should trust this strange man we hadn't met. He could murder us in our sleep for all we knew. Then again, one could easily flip that statement. There was no rational reason for that man to trust us. We could be murderers. We could kill him in his sleep if that was our intent. Or course it wasn't , and it isn't. I wonder if this is how man is supposed to be? Hospitable? If it is then that would mean that one must be very trusting in order to be hospitable. I hate to say it, but I don't think I could be that trusting. Trust is hard. Even though we were not completely sold on this man, we didn't want to be exposed to the elements. So we stayed the night. We slept in shifts. One of us would stay awake for an hour while the other sleeps. As you probably guessed this did not work out. We crashed hard and woke at 5 a.m. to the old man's grainy voice. "You're gonna miss it." He shouts at us. I rub my eyes. "Miss what?" "The sunrise!" He replies eagerly like a child on Christmas morning. "We've seen it before." Olivia says half awake. She still wears her sugar skull mask as if it were a sleeping mask. "I know, but it's different. It's different each and every day." He says trying to make us feel alive. We are unresponsive. He snaps his fingers. "Cone on. Up. Up." We slowly get up and walk towards the window. All three of us stand in silence for a great deal of time and admire the way the sun wakes up the earth. I have always admired both sunsets and sunrises.  I admit I may have taken them for granted though. While the colors are amazing and beautiful, I think there is an even bigger picture especially when you are nearing the end and realize that your days are finite. One could always look at a sunrise and think "victory." It may seem trivial. It may seem small, but no matter who you are or where you are in life, you can always say to yourself that you made it to see another day. That itself is a victory.