goodbye, sodium lights

I am a family man with a dark past. not 'dark' as in 'seedy', but 'dark' as in the fact that I used to live in the wee hours before I found a reason to live in the sun. late nights, wandering around streets lit by stuttered cars & sodium lights. I would see the strangest, most beautiful things. like a fox drinking in the gutter, not 6 feet from me. or, skies that looked as if they were hazy shrouds intent on smothering the chaos below them like a vast unseen mother covering a shivering and confused child with a blanket of downy consolation.

but, like I said, the sun did rise. and I woke to a world, albeit bright, but more consoled than I could have imagined. in that world was a family. a wife. a son. and, finally, a daughter. 

this world was, and is, a paradigm-shattering transition for a fool like me. however, it is a worthy one. yes, the worthiest. I know this by the faces I know best. the faces I wake up to, squinting into the brightness of the sun. the faces I love beyond definition.