My grandfather turns ninety-two today. We have him over for dinner. He always says, in his age, he doesn’t much anymore. Maybe that’s something one comes to say when one doesn’t eat as they once did; when one’s company, life-partner—and cook—are passed and meals are made more plain and common and mostly for one’s self. I notice whenever a good meal is before him still, his appetite returns.
My wife and children made a cake, red velvet with white cream cheese icing because Owen said we should, and so we did. It is covered with every candle we could find.
Cake and candles glow as we sing to him “Happy Birthday.”
Candles lit and burning still, my daughter asks him to “make a wish.”
My grandfather pauses. I see him think, as much into past as in the present. I can’t see into his future.
Instead of wish, my grandfather speaks to how blessed his life has been. He recounts the many ways his life has been gifted, enriched, and granted favor—by fortune, or by God—and he names them each as blessing.
His speech prolongs. Through all, we listen—some tales we’ve heard before. Others, to us, are new. We don’t know why, or don’t want to say, but know there’s weight beyond the words.
His words complete, the candles are at their ends. He blows them out. He takes his time, there many to be blown even if low and nearly out in full burn of form and time. Breath by breath, he puts them out, and light of their glow erases and dies away from reflect in the glasses over his eyes.
He never made a wish.
He didn’t need to.
They already came true—all the ones he desired, loved, and prayed the most.
My grandfather is my hero. He is who I desire most to emulate as I age and grow and learn to better and more completely share and show my love to family (those with us now, and those—I pray—that will join us when it is season for my children, and grandchildren to add limbs to our family lineage and my own place in tree feels nearer to roots), friends, and respect to all, as best as I am able, I meet along this life’s experience.
I pray when reaching later age, whatever God chooses this to mean in accord to the timeline of my life, that I am not still wishing on candles; that I have lived this life well and true enough to know that the dreams God wished me most to have lived for me to true, and that I see and speak to them for what they are—blessing and testament to a rich and thankful life.