Candles Burning in Memory

On the night of December 8th, 1980 when I heard the news, I knew the world was going to miss John Lennon. After listening to hours of news bulletins about his assassination, I lit an ivory white candle in memory of John, and placed it on the mantelpiece above our fireplace. The candle was encased in a heavy five point star made of glass. As the candle burned I played nearly every Beatles, and John Lennon album I owned, finally ending late in the evening with Double Fantasy, the album that was to be John’s comeback album. As John was singing: “I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,” and telling us: “there's no problem, only solutions,” and explaining that “there's no hurry...” The candleholder exploded, throwing glass and wax onto the mantle, hearth, and floor.

As I cleaned up the mess I thought of how surreal it felt. Now thirty years later it still seems strangely fitting that the candle we burned for John grew far too hot for its container, and didn’t shine for nearly as long as it should have.

On the night of January 1^st, 2011 I was reminded of all this as I lit a candle for a young woman that I never knew, but who’s tragic death has no doubt crushed the hearts of her friends and family. There were no bulletins on the radio (I received the news in a private Email.) The nation did not mourn together, nor will it look back and remember together. But as John professed, we are all the same, none of us more important than the rest, so another candle burned in my home the other night, as one does from time to time, just as brightly as John’s, because another good person left this world much too soon.