The colonial candleholder

It came in the morning as a laughing memory. There I was, a small child who wanted to make a silly colonial candle holder. I looked back twenty years into my own small eyes and said bless your heart. It was a cute memory, though perhaps a little sad.

But then in evening, when the sun no longer shone, it came back to me again--haunting. The candle holder that held my turmoil.  My dad was gone. Between homes. Homeless. My mother distraught. And that one safe place, my school with my sweet grade-school teacher and the friends I was just beginning to love---and I couldn't go back even there. And I had to leave, to flee, the day before I was going to make that stupid colonial candle holder.

One more day---please. Just one more. Tomorrow I get to make my candle holder. Please.

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Memories come flooding back now and then. They seem so simple.  The hopes of a child in the midst of chaos. When my world was crashing down, all I wanted was to make this candle holder.  Being pulled out of my school one day early, I wasn't thinking about my dad.  I wasn't thinking about moving houses and cities.  I wasn't thinking of our family fleeing.  I was devastated by that candle holder.

Now, without patronizing, without condescending, I look back into those eyes once more and say bless your heart.