1-12-2025 4:19am

A Candle Lights the Way to Remembrance

Lesley Misko Editor

From Wikipedia

by Lesley MIsko

Last night I lit a candle for my father. It is a Yahrzeit candle, a special candle, created to burn for 24 hours on the annual Hebrew calendar anniversary of a close relative’s death. While lighting it, I recited a prayer, and as is the tradition, I reflected inwardly on my father’s life and contributions.

I was reminded of a poem, “Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden.

It says:

"Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

And slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

Who had driven out the cold

And polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

Of love’s austere and lonely offices?"

In the poem, an adult remembers his father caring for him and providing for his needs, despite his father’s hard life… “the frigid cold,” “his cracked and aching hands.” In the last two lines, he acknowledges that as a child he did not understand that the things his father did for him, despite his hard life, reflected his father’s love for him. Now, years later, he understands.

My father’s life wasn’t easy. He quit school with less than a semester remaining before graduation. A teacher called him “a dirty Jew,” so he walked out of the classroom. The principal ordered him to apologize to the teacher for walking out. He refused and quit instead. He served in the military. Eventually he ended up with a union job in New York’s garment industry. He worked six-day weeks, glad for the overtime. He hauled heavy bolts of fabrics, stood on his feet all day. His hands and fingers hurt from cutting fabrics for clothing.

But Sunday mornings he took me to the zoo and bought me 5-cent bags of peanuts to feed the squirrels gathered at the entrance gate. He dragged himself out of bed earlier than he would have had to so he could walk the dog, allowing me the luxury of sleeping a little longer before school. He delayed going someplace to stay home with me so I could go on my first date, and he saw me off to my prom while my mother was 100 miles away because it just wasn’t that important to her. He showed me love in countless ways, including accepting my decision to be a teacher, even though school had treated him badly, causing him to have no love for it.

My father would have been 105 now. The 24 hours will end shortly, and the candle will extinguish, leaving a thin ribbon of smoke in the air. But my memories will continue. I still miss his caring and wisdom. The memories of his love will continue long after the candle is gone.