One of the daily chores was to wipe the hurricane lantern’s glass, trim the wick, fill it with oil, and keep it ready for the approaching dusk.
I could never reconcile this messy task with her innate purity.
I absolutely detested the smell of kerosene. One day, when I told her this, she simply smiled. She said, “Son, someone has to light the lamp; someone must take up the task of chasing away the darkness.”
My mother, in her quiet solitude, took up that very task of lighting the lamp—perhaps all mothers do. Today, Mother is gone; the electricity has replaced the hurricane lantern. The lights turn on, cascading in torrents across the rooms, the veranda, and the courtyard. Only a few fireflies in the distant bushes stare with tearful eyes toward the deeper darkness further away. In their flickering, sleepy glow, how magical her eternal resting place seems. On star-studded nights, mothers perhaps become those dim hurricane lanterns, staying awake at every bedside—like an indispensable lighthouse.
