holding her in all the light i can kindle

by bam

candles at st. pauls'

i lit candles in every church, chapel, cathedral, abbey. all across london, every hushed chamber into which i walked. every one that offered candle sticks, twopence or a pound. a trail of dripping wax and smoky whiffs.

a trail of prayer.

because sometimes we are left to only words unfurled from lips, from heart. and i learned long long ago that i might supercharge my words if i latch them onto light beams, send them heavenward on the strands of flame that flickers.

i kindled that flotilla of wax and wick because i knew this day was coming, this day in which a woman i love — a sister i dearly love, my youngest brother’s wife — would be in the hands of three surgeons across the arc of eight to 10 hours.

i awoke long before dawn today. i woke in black of deepest night. and i could not stop the prayers. i prayed on my knees. i prayed once i’d climbed back under toasty covers. i prayed, for a short while, straight through my dreams. and now, awake, i am keeping apace my prayer.

she, along with too many others i love, is battling cancer, breast cancer. after six godawful months of chemo, today’s the day the surgeons get to work. it will be a long and intricate day. and miles and miles away, all i’m left to do is pray.

and so, preamble to this day of prayer, knowing well there can never be enough nor too much, i lit candles at st. paul’s cathedral, the domed magnificence of sir christopher wren just north of the river thames. and i lit candles in westminster abbey, where kings and queens are crowned.

westminstercandles

and now home, back at my old maple table, here in the kitchen of this old and drafty house, i’ve lit a candle to burn through all the hours.

candle

those of us who believe in prayer, and who believe in candle power, we partake of incantations, we strike a match to wicks that burst into stars of light and will not be extinguished. not until the prayers have made their way to the heart of God who listens, always listens.

please, God, listen hard to this one….

i’m getting email updates from my brother who sits alone in a cincinnati hospital surgical waiting room. my glorious sister-in-law sent out one last dispatch last night, one that captures her indomitable spirit, spells out how she thoughtfully curated her “off-to-mastectomy” outfit for the day (hot pink cincinnati opera T-shirt, under her lilly pulitzer zip-up), opining “it is important to wear something more than lounging pants to your mastectomy and reconstruction surgery.” my very favorite part of her curated collection: her “f*ck this sh*t” socks (*’s are mine, for the sake of delicacy; her socks spell it wholly out, vowels and consonants un-bleeped), which pretty much suggests her take-no-prisoners stance  toward obliterating every last cancer cell that dared to trespass her sacred boundaries.

please, whisper a prayer or three for her, and anyone else we know and love who is engaged in cancer obliteration.