The girl who collected sunsets

There was once a girl who collected sunsets. Not photo graphs and not painting but actual sunsets. At least that was what everyone thought. Every evening she could climb a small hill outside her village carrying an empty glass jar. She would sir there quitely until the sun disappeared below the horizon.

Then she would carefully close the lid and carry the jar home. The villagers found that amusing and the children laughed and adults shook their heads.

"What are you doing?" They often asked. "Collecting sunset" she would always reply. Nobody understood. And then years passed and then the girl grew. The collection grew larger.

Shelves upon shelves of sealed glass jars filled in her tiny house. Each one was labelled with a date. People would assume that the jars were empty. One particularly difficult year a terrible drought struck the village. Crops failed and business closed and the familes struggled. The village seemed to lose its spirit and suddenly nobody smiled anyone. Nobody gathered in the square. Nobody spoke about the future.

One evening while walking home she noticed how silent everything has became. So she opened on of her jars. Immediately a warm golden light spilled into the street.

The colours of a long forgotten sunset painted the walls. The air felt softer and the people stopped walking m they stared. The light carried memories. Memories of children playing and birds singing and the summer evening. And the hope.

For the first time in months everyone smiled. The next day she opened another jar. And then the next day another and then another the next day. Each sunset release a little warmth into the village.

A little beautiful remainder that difficult thing always pass. Soon people begum gathering every evening to watch. Not because the villages problem has disappeared bit bc they remembered that joy still existed.

Years later when the draught ended someone form the village finally asked her how she had captured the sunsets. The young girl now a old women smiled and said "I never captured them". "What so you mean" they asked.

"The jars were empty" she said. The villagers stared. "Then what did we see?" The asked. She laughed. "Memories...those were the memories" she said.

All those years she had claimed the not not to collect sunsets but to appreciate them and tk notice them and to remember them.

When difficult times arraived she simply shared those memories with everyone else.

Because sometimes they just need a remainder that the beautiful days have existed before and will exist again no matter what you are going through now or what you have gone through in the last. We always have move on and time heals everything.