The soft glow of a candle burns in memory of you. It’s a small thing, just a symbolic gesture really, but even so, its flickering flame warms my heart like a tender caress of your fingers. Oh, how I miss your touch!
The light from the candle is brightest at the wick and extends outward with diminishing intensity. So it is, I think, with grief. Right now, I am the burning wick; where the memories of you are vivid and the absence of you is harsh and raw. As time passes, I expect I will move outward away from the flame into the illuminated ether beyond where the intensity of the memories and grief lessen and start to coexist with a reality without your presence.
How long it will take to reach that nexus between the burning flame and the warm light it imbues I cannot say. Months? Years? Perhaps never?
What I do know is that time is the only path to make that crossing. So, for now, I will continue this simple act to burn the candle as both a memorial of the past and as a guiding light toward the future; and I will bask in its warm glow along the way.
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