I recently got word that my octogenarian father is in the hospital again for the third time in the last three months. I am fairly sure the end of my father’s long and epic life is near. And though I have basically come to terms with not only the coming end of his life but my own life as well, human beings, real ones, were never meant to live forever.
But I do not welcome the coming sadness, never-the-less. There will always be something in the mysteries of death and darkness that is to be feared… and avoided for as long as possible.
One of the most important avoidance measures is to light a few candles. A candle holds back the darkness for a while. And of course, I mean that in only the most metaphorical of multiple senses.
There are many ways to light a candle. I have lit three in this essay. I lit them with my ink pen and my drawing skill (modest though it may be). And drawing alone is not the sum total of the ways a candle may be lit.
Each of the novels I have written is also a candle. They may be useless piles of pages that nobody ever reads, but they are the summation of my already long life and work as a writer. I may not be well known, and probably am not as talented as the better-known writers, but I really do have something to tell. And being published where someone may eventually… even accidentally read some of it, there is no telling exactly how far into the darkness my light will reach.
And the even-more-amazing fact about the reach my candlelight into the darkness has is this, my candles were only lit because my father first lit the candle that is me. As I have passed the candle-lighting responsibility on to those who read my writing, and to my children who have many more candles of their own to light.
I love you, Dad. Raymond L. Beyer. My next novel is dedicated to you. Let’s continue to hold off the darkness for as long as we can… together.
Catch a Falling Star 