A Candle For A Soldier

There is a blue candle that sits on my desk. It burns for a soldier gone far away to a land i will probably never see. To fight in a war that no one understands. To endure what the rest of us won’t endure.


I wonder what his life must be like, the camaraderie he is building, the paradox of boredom from long hours of dull nothingness and the fear that lies in those moments waiting for a stray bullet. Sand, ubiquitous in its persistence, working its way into every last thing. There is no stopping it. After a while you just live with it. Like not taking a shower. That was in some other life and some other person that took hot showers with clear running water. Had a clean towel. A Twix bar where the chocolate hasn’t all melted off. Soft cotton sheets – without sand in them. And news. News of what’s happening back home. It’s almost a fantasy world now. How can you compare this life to the one back home? This is home, isn’t it?

Yet, for all the hardships, i sometimes long to be there. I want to see. To know. To experience. To do so would be to understand. Not the war. But the humanity within it. The strengths. The weaknesses. I imagine living in war makes every moment very clear – whether in the gruesome details of death, or the precious knowing that you are still alive. It is Life without the comforts of society, a pared down, distillation of realness.

But these are only my fantasies. I am here. He is there. What can i know of war? So i said goodbye to the person i knew. The man who returns, if he returns, will be very different. That is to be expected.

I am reminded of these lines from a movie that – while not quite exact – pull the emotions down that familiar path…

“It’s an odd feeling…fairwell. There is some envy in it. Men go off to be tested for courage. If we’re tested at all, it’s for patience…for doing without…for how well we can endure loneliness. But I had always known that. It didn’t require a war.”

The candle is still lit…