The candle on the mantel

Tonight might be your first candle lighting or you may have been to so many that you cannot remember them all.  Either way for me every one has been and is special. I have been where I had no hope and I have been to ones where I was full of hope.

My son Noah died at four and ½ years old on June 14^th 1999 from complications of a tonsillectomy, he was my first born and at the time my only son, my future and my joy and on that day my hope, my joy and my future were taken away.

I had no idea what to do, I had never truly learned how to grieve or even what grief really was.  I had experienced death before but what it had taught me did not help.

When I was about 12 my grandmother on my father’s side died and I found out by answering the phone being asked when the funeral was.

When I was about 18 my other grandmother died, in many ways she was a mother to me as she had lived with me my entire life.  I did not even go to her funeral, she is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, only went to her grave years later.

My family did not talk about death or have the dead in anyway as a part of our lives.  All I had ever seen and all that I had ever learned about grief was to avoid and to deny it.  My son was dead and I knew this would not work, the darkness surrounded me and I had no hope.

That first year I went to my first candle lighting.  I was so full of pain and desperate for anything.  We lit our candles and passed the light around and for the first time since Noah died as I held tight to that candle I felt hope, and saw it in the flame of that one small candle, hope.  

When it came time to put it out I used my fingers I wanted to feel the pain, I wanted to take the flame with me, I wanted the hope in me.  I felt closer to my son than I had since his death. It hurt and it was beautiful. 

Shortly after the candle lighting with the Holidays approaching I knew I would do what I had always done. Every year of my life except the year Tanya, my wife was pregnant with Noah, I have been at my parent’s home.  I was so conflicted, I did not know how I could possibly do the holidays without including Noah. I was engulfed by the darkness.

This first holiday was a disaster no one but my wife and I acknowledged our son, we sat literally in the dark and cried.  We ended up leaving earlier than we planned.

We returned home and I knew I was done living grief the way I had learned.  We purchased a big candle and placed it on the mantel.  We kept it or its replacement lit all the way to January 26^th, his birthday.  I cried but there was hope in that flame.  There was more than one night when I would sit and stare at the candle only to wake in the same chair after only few hours of fitful sleep.

I dreaded my second candle lighting, and yet at the same time looked forward to it. It was my time to sit publically with my son along with so many people who understood, I knew that this second year must be different many people shared their reality of what they had done and what their fears were it was hopeful to see so many others understand. 

I knew I had to reconcile how to include Noah in my holiday and yet deal with my family that did not know how.  That candle had been the symbol of my hope and I wanted to share that hope. 

That second year I brought my Compassionate friend’s candle to my parents home, before anything started Tanya and got up spoke his name, Noah,  and lit the candle, we set it on the mantle, my mother commented on the candle , so did my dad I told them it was Noah’s candle and to my surprise they teared up and we all cried , Noah was spoken of for the first time and it was good. The holidays that year were hard and they were painful but Noah was a clear part of them.

The third Holiday I showed up at my parents home and to my shock there with the decorations was a candle already lit, my mom said I hope it was ok, I lit the Candle before you arrived.  Was it ok?  It was beautiful. The love of that gesture lit the room. 

I also noticed hanging on the mantle was a stocking with his name on it and a journal in it.  My mom told me this was so every year we could all share a memory of him and it would grow and he would always be a part of our lives.  He would be known by those who would never meet him.  I was full of pain and also full of hope.  An impossible to understand paradox except by those with know it.

The fourth year without my son the candle on the mantle was again lit for his birthday, for his anniversary or any time I need an outward representation of hope. The hope had begun to spark in my heart, not only in the flame of the candle.  That year I looked forward to the tears as well as the hope of the candle lighting, the missing him yet the realization that he is with me all the time.

My families holidays are now full of signs of him, we not only speak of the dead, we include them in all we do.  The light of that candle on the mantle has transformed an entire family,  we now have grief shared not denied.  That candle now sits permanently on the mantel.

I have been bereaved for a long time. This is my 15th candle lighting and over those years the tradition of the candle has grown.   My family has also grown, I now have two other sons that, although they have never physically been in the same room as Noah, they know him as a brother. My sister in law and nieces that have never experienced the brilliance of his smile know of the joy that a 4 and ½ year old was so full of.

In 2007 my wife’s mother, Gretchen, died and we began to light the candle in Noah’s and her name, in 2008 my sister in law’s father died and we lit the candle in the memory of their lives.  The next year a cousin of mine died and we began to light the candle in the realization that they were all still with us and that they belonged in a place of prominence in our lives.

Hope has continued to return.  What was once a candle I fell asleep to that first birthday without him, has become a flame that rises up in me. It no longer only burns on a mantle but burns brighter, stronger and forever in my heart.   I live daily with the pain of missing him and yet I live the paradox of hope, knowing he is always with me.

No matter where you are on your grief journey may you find hope, if not your own hope than hope from the communal flame of your Compassionate Friends that we will bring to the surface in a few minutes, the one that burns in all of us.  We will have to extinguish the flame from the candle we pass, however just as the candle on the mantle sits there as a permanent part of my life, the flame of Hope in our hearts is fueled by Love and is never extinguished.  Love lives on,  love never dies.