Jack's Candle

The one-year anniversary of my beloved Jack Loscutoff's September 9th death came up fast.

I didn't look forward to it. I feared that thinking about Jack on the day he died might be tough. 

My friend Deirdre suggested I adopt a Jewish tradition of burning a 24-hour candle, a yahrzeit. "You burn the candle every minute of Jack's one-year anniversary day." Deirdre's eyes sparkled. "You can think of him whenever you walk past the yahrzeit, and talk to him, if you want to."

Sounded good to me. Until I started shopping for a yahrzeit in Omaha. 

Eventually I decided this ritual should work just fine with an ordinary candle. In Walgreen's, I purchased a small model entitled "Twilight."

This morning, the fateful day, I forgot the candle until I'd washed and dressed. Then I rushed to light it. 

I leaned toward the flame and said, "Hello, darling." Jack didn't answer, but Jon Powell, my husband of fifteen years, did. Clear as a bell.

I'd been mad about Jon, never really released him, although he's been dead more than forty years. He did such unforgettable things, like mummify our cat when she died. Egyptian fashion. 

Our easy love felt like a dance, very different from my more complicated love for Jack. But I had been in my twenties.

I loved both of them a lot. But this was Jack's day. So I said, "Hello, Jack." Over the morning, I spoke to him again and again. And again and again and again. But Jack never answered back.

Typical.

Finally I said to hell with this and blew the candle out.