A Light From Yours

You began lighting your candles with the shamash. Then, one by one, the children came to take light from yours, to say their bracha.

One at a time, pressed together by the dining room windows, waiting until the youngest had her turn.

How did it feel to sit at the front and not turn around?

To know without looking, by the pause between blessings, by the scrape of their chairs, that they were still there behind you.

You listened, trusted the quiet— slow steps forward as they carried their candles back to their places.

All the while, they felt it too: that you were there, passing the light forward.

As I sit at the front and watch the lights burn, I imagine how wonderful this must have felt.

Perhaps you left the space open— hoping 

 we would find you there.