Birthday Candles

Today is my son Calvin’s seventeenth birthday.

A framed artwork piece hangs in our hallway that reads The days are long but the years are short.

How true that is.

Last night, we sang Happy Birthday before he blew out candles on a cake. I stared at those candles, and at him, his face cast in the warm glow.

I thought about life and light.

The tradition of cakes and candles has ancient Greek and Roman roots, but in the 1700s, German Kinderfest celebrations specifically connected the two on birthdays. One candle for each year of a child’s age, plus one extra center candle to represent hope and protection for the year ahead.

Light represents life.

One light for every year lived, each one a miracle.

The collection of candles on a cake signifies the collection of experiences, knowledge, and growth accumulated with time. With every year, the number of candles increases, as does the brightness of the light.

So many people dread growing older without realizing the grace and the gift of a cake that lights up a room.

Light illuminates. It reveals what we wouldn’t see in the dark.

Once a year, we gather to recognize and witness someone else’s light, and how that light helps us see the world differently.

Watching Cal, I realized that he has cracked me open in more ways than I could have ever imagined. He has changed my perspective, shuffled my priorities and attention, and helped me see things I’d stopped noticing.

I never thought I had the capacity to love so big until I held him. He expanded the corners of my heart.

Today, on his birthday, I keep coming back to birthday candles.

They represent the sum of the past.

They look toward the hope of the future.

They remind us that even one tiny flame can change a room.

Seventeen tiny flames, well, those can change the world.

My memoir, Piece by Piece: A Life Remembered through Things Lost, is out now and available to order here.