Last month, when I was having a really rough time, Julia and Serenity sent me a care package with some teas and candles. (The generousity of you people is just amazing.)

Sadly, the post office was not kind to the package and most of the encased-in-glass candles were quite broken. After letting them sit in the box for a couple of days, broken bits rattling whenever I touched it, I decided to at least inspect them to see if any of them survived. I pulled each one out carefully, glass chunks falling from the wax. Definitely broken. What the hell had the post office done, played football with the damn package?

But one was okay. It had a small crack, but was still intact. Mostly I was relieved that the gift wasn’t entirely to waste – I always feel so much worse for the gift-giver than myself, almost guilty that someone went out of their way for me only to end up like that. I set the candle aside.

Saturday, September 6th. I was home from work, it was getting late, and I suddenly felt like I needed to do something. I couldn’t let the date passed unnoticed. I knew then what that candle was for. And then I took photos… freezing time, marking that day in visual form, creating memories to place lovingly in Devin’s scrapbook.

Then Sunday night, and Monday too, I lit the candle again when I moved to the bedroom on my laptop. It burns down slowly, flickering soft light in the bedroom. I let it burn until I go to sleep, then I blow it out.

I’ve been thinking about this candle, this single cracked candle, wondering why. This is a theme lately. Look at the tree: a gorgeous healthy, full-bodied tree. It died back, it struggled… we lost more than half of the tree. But it remained. Broken and bruised and no longer perfect, no longer whole… but enough of it remained. And now this candle, too… the last one of the batch, one survived when the rest did not.

There is meaning there. Sometimes I just can’t see it. Though oftentimes I think I am just grasping at straws… trying to find meaning where is none, trying to find something to make this all make a little bit of sense.