Her candle still lights. The one she surprised me with that time we were in Charleston together. A candle from the Holy City for my birthday: 34. A candle from before we knew she was pregnant with their first. With my dear one. My godson.

Her candle still lights even though the wick has reached the bottom, not yet extinguished. Tonight her candle is lit as Mumford’s “Roll Away Your Stone” spins on the turntable. J doesn’t know how it pangs me to see it alight, the meaning it holds. He means well, but.

Things are not well. There’s strife and turmoil and all manner of despair. I lack the means to articulate the rift that’s come between she and my parents. A rift that may be between them, but impacts everyone in our family. Can’t she see that? 

Words have been flung. Words that cannot be taken back. Perhaps they’re words which aren’t intended to be rescinded? But, the toddler ears upon which those words, hopefully, haven’t fallen will bear the full weight of their outcome. Of what cannot be undone.

I’ve kept my peace for weeks as the discord has played out within my family; geographically (perhaps conveniently) distant.

But tonight, the scent of that damn candle unwittingly wafts about my house. I catch the scent and, I confess, it gives me hope. The wick hasn’t quite reached it’s end.