Lotus Candles & Train Rides
It won’t take but a minute online, to discover why the “Singing Lotus Cake Candle” has been removed from Wal-Mart shelves in Canada. Yes, they’ve been known to spontaneously combust on top of birthday cakes and well, despite taking a hammer to it more than once, the singing part of the candle can never be destroyed. Having lit them in the double digits over the past couple years, we now know an endless loop of, “Happy Birthday” can play for up to sixteen days. …And not softly.
Instead of listening to the groaning, monotonous rhythm in our recycling bin, our youngest took it upon herself to scamper down the street in stocking feet and plant it in a neighbour’s shrub. It was promptly returned by their two children, to the top of our maple tree out front. The next day I heard it playing from the potted plant across the street, only to hear its same annoying sound echoing from the top shelves of our garage the following morning.
Declaring it, “on”, my husband grabbed our step ladder and with stealth, duct taped it underneath our neighbour’s second story master bedroom window, two doors down. Their laughter at its discovery, floated its way through our bedroom window at midnight. Ours carried through our backyard and downwind back to them. We were connected through joy, sharing in delight, in a suspended moment in time.
Our elaborate game of adult hide and seek has gone on for years here in Mannheim, escalating in creativity and crescendo. I guess I’m not surprised, our neighbour Larry Power has serious, “game” when it comes to our candle wars. His “all in” personality served him well having competed at the highest athletic level in hockey. Drafted to the Hartford Whalers at 6’1’’ and 180 pounds, he got his stick on the ice as centre forward and skated his heart out. Two training camps. A couple exhibition games. And the ride was over.
Lit up, on fire, and extinguished just like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake.
All the “not supposed to happen” circumstances that leave us face down tasting cement wondering whether we’ll have the intestinal fortitude to get back up and recognize there are no wrong paths, just different paths.
After two years in Utica he began a journey to re-discover a sense of self outside of the label “athlete”. That, right there, that work to dig deep and redefine and reinvent is when character is revealed.
So often I view life’s twists of fate as these awe-inspiring moments that leave us breathless not gasping. We can be skipping merrily down the magic yellow brick road, convinced we’re on the “right path” until hit with an injury, illness, job loss, or death. All the “not supposed to happen” circumstances that leave us face down tasting cement wondering whether we’ll have the intestinal fortitude to get back up and recognize there are no wrong paths, just different paths.
Larry’s not my hero, because he had a plan, worked his plan, and achieved his plan. He’s my hero because he got on a train headed straight for a final destination he paid the full ticket price for, and then unannounced, the train jumped tracks. Staring out a tiny window of limited possibility, he watched all the stops he believed he wanted, speed right past him.
Until he didn’t.
Until the day he chose to suspend the belief he knew where he was going. Until he could allow for something different, perhaps even better, than what was never part of the plan; to choose to travel to places he never knew he wanted to go. This is what makes him so incredibly beautiful.
Larry lights up every room he walks in. He has an expansive world view, a big unguarded heart, a sharp wit, and a bear hug that envelopes all of us up in his love. He attends every illegally blazing Mannheim birthday party, toasting his neighbours and wishing the very highest for everyone. I cannot begin to describe how grateful I am that his adventurous train ride led him straight to us, living right next door, as the best neighbour anyone could ever hope to have.
Lotus Candles & Train Rides
It won’t take but a minute online, to discover why the “Singing Lotus Cake Candle” has been removed from Wal-Mart shelves in Canada. Yes, they’ve been known to spontaneously combust on top of birthday cakes and well, despite taking a hammer to it more than once, the singing part of the candle can never be destroyed. Having lit them in the double digits over the past couple years, we now know an endless loop of, “Happy Birthday” can play for up to sixteen days. …And not softly.
Instead of listening to the groaning, monotonous rhythm in our recycling bin, our youngest took it upon herself to scamper down the street in stocking feet and plant it in a neighbour’s shrub. It was promptly returned by their two children, to the top of our maple tree out front. The next day I heard it playing from the potted plant across the street, only to hear its same annoying sound echoing from the top shelves of our garage the following morning.
Declaring it, “on”, my husband grabbed our step ladder and with stealth, duct taped it underneath our neighbour’s second story master bedroom window, two doors down. Their laughter at its discovery, floated its way through our bedroom window at midnight. Ours carried through our backyard and downwind back to them. We were connected through joy, sharing in delight, in a suspended moment in time.
Our elaborate game of adult hide and seek has gone on for years here in Mannheim, escalating in creativity and crescendo. I guess I’m not surprised, our neighbour Larry Power has serious, “game” when it comes to our candle wars. His “all in” personality served him well having competed at the highest athletic level in hockey. Drafted to the Hartford Whalers at 6’1’’ and 180 pounds, he got his stick on the ice as centre forward and skated his heart out. Two training camps. A couple exhibition games. And the ride was over.
Lit up, on fire, and extinguished just like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake.
All the “not supposed to happen” circumstances that leave us face down tasting cement wondering whether we’ll have the intestinal fortitude to get back up and recognize there are no wrong paths, just different paths.
After two years in Utica he began a journey to re-discover a sense of self outside of the label “athlete”. That, right there, that work to dig deep and redefine and reinvent is when character is revealed.
So often I view life’s twists of fate as these awe-inspiring moments that leave us breathless not gasping. We can be skipping merrily down the magic yellow brick road, convinced we’re on the “right path” until hit with an injury, illness, job loss, or death. All the “not supposed to happen” circumstances that leave us face down tasting cement wondering whether we’ll have the intestinal fortitude to get back up and recognize there are no wrong paths, just different paths.
Larry’s not my hero, because he had a plan, worked his plan, and achieved his plan. He’s my hero because he got on a train headed straight for a final destination he paid the full ticket price for, and then unannounced, the train jumped tracks. Staring out a tiny window of limited possibility, he watched all the stops he believed he wanted, speed right past him.
Until he didn’t.
Until the day he chose to suspend the belief he knew where he was going. Until he could allow for something different, perhaps even better, than what was never part of the plan; to choose to travel to places he never knew he wanted to go. This is what makes him so incredibly beautiful.
Larry lights up every room he walks in. He has an expansive world view, a big unguarded heart, a sharp wit, and a bear hug that envelopes all of us up in his love. He attends every illegally blazing Mannheim birthday party, toasting his neighbours and wishing the very highest for everyone. I cannot begin to describe how grateful I am that his adventurous train ride led him straight to us, living right next door, as the best neighbour anyone could ever hope to have.