This Little Light Of Mine

Last night, after a wonderful yoga class, I came home and rifled around, looking for a candle to light.  Normally a candlegoddess, I found one in the entire house that wasn't a birthday candle.  One.  Everything else is packed up and put away, either in a box in the house or in the POD.  I lit the candle and placed it in front of a statue of the Holy Family.  For a few moments, I just stared, and then, very softly, I sang an Irish blessing.
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
May the rain fall softly on your fields
And until we meet again
May you keep safe in the gentle, loving arms of God.

The wicks flickered and the candle burned brightly into the night, releasing a gentle lavender smell throughout the house.  So gentle and relaxing, in fact, that I fell asleep in the chair in the living room.  And, at 4:30am, I woke up.  The wax was gone, and yet one of the wicks had the tiniest of flames dancing.  No wax, no cotton, nothing left to burn.  But there it was.

Peter had woken me when he brought Bobby downstairs for a drink.  We stood there, the three of us, for a moment, just watching.  "Like our babies," I whispered.  Children who, science says, shouldn't have been able to live, but did.  Like that little wick.  Bobby reached out and, as I took him into my arms, he kissed me, and snuggled against me.  And, for a moment, they were all there.

I dont know when the flame extinguished.  But, in my heart, theirs never will.