Dark Spots

How old was I when I first discovered this thing I was doing was living, and it would have an end? When did I come to know that what I saw far away and in everything was the dark spot in the world's light? My grandfather's funeral was in 1969. I was 7 years old. Nothing ended prior to that. Everything was pure light, eternal, alive ... until then. But the sun, once so flawless, had a hole in it, a dark spot right there in the very middle. It became visible for me in 1969. Funny thing is, now in every blanched-yellow, dusky-red sunset that tips the balance between summer and fall, between beginnings and endings, between living and dying, I see it again. The same soft light shaded with a spot of dark death. That dark spot. That opposite of life. Refuses to relent. It only grow closer with every ochre-sunset I see. The last lesson my grandfather taught me was to see, the unavoidable dark spots in life. ' It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between. ' - Diane Ackerman