The Broken Candle Holder

Today, Troy opened the cabinet and found one of my photo albums from college. It had pictures in it that I had taken with my roommate...flowers, sites around the city, that sort of thing. In other words, one of a kind pictures that I could never get back again.

Troy pulled it out and started leafing through it. At first, he was just looking at the pictures, so I didn’t think anything of it. But then for some unknown reason, he started crushing them up. I was outraged. But then I had to remember that he’s only a baby. He doesn’t really understand. He just likes the crinkly sound it makes.

I have a vivid recollection of a time when I was about eleven. I was over at my grandmother’s house with my cousins, playing in her back room. We made up a game of taking pecans and trying to throw them into this bowl that she had on a bookshelf. One of my throws went errant, and the pecan ended up hitting a glass candle holder instead. The glass shattered into several pieces, and a feeling of dread immediately shot through my body. I had one of two options. I could hide it from her and hope she didn’t notice, or I could confess and take the punishment. Despite every fiber of my being crying out that I was a fool, I took the broken pieces in my hands and took them to my grandmother.

I wish this story had a happy ending, where my grandmother realized it was an accident, and that I was just a a child, and forgave me. That she comforted me, knowing the guilt and anxiety that I was feeling. That she reassured me that it was only “stuff,” and that it could be replaced. None of that happened. She coldly, angrily, took the shattered pieces and quietly said, “This was my mother’s candle holder. It was over a hundred years old. It can never be replaced.”

The emptiness I felt inside me has never left me. I could not have felt worse than I did at that moment. And it was made worse by the cold, unforgiving way that my grandmother shut me out. She wouldn’t even talk to me for the rest of the day.

So, whenever I find myself in one of those moments where Troy has destroyed something that can’t be replaced, I remember that candle holder. I remember how I felt, and how my grandmother made me feel. I remember wanting her forgiveness and comfort. I remember not getting it, and it brings me peace. I don’t want Troy to feel the way I did that day. It is only “stuff” after all, and he’s only a baby. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing. He’s not trying to hurt me.

So, I take a couple of minutes to breathe (I’m human after all), but then I find him and hug him. I let him know that things are okay between us. I let him know that I still love him. Our relationship is more important to me than “stuff.”