Two young kids, shaken by an unspeakable tragedy, are shown how much more powerful the light is. Dedicated to the victims of the shooting in Australia.
The Cohen family was seated around the table for their annual feast on the first night of Hanukkah. Every year they always had a glorious feast to mark the beginning of the festival of light. But their two young kids, David and Esther, didn’t seem to be really interested in it this year.
When they didn’t join in the toasts, it became clear that something was indeed troubling them. “Sweeties,” said their mother, “what’s the matter? Why aren’t you celebrating with us?”
The two kids were silent for a moment. Then David sighed and said “What’s the point of celebrating the light when there’s so much darkness in the world?”
Their mother sighed. She knew what her son was talking about. A week ago, there had been a terrible incident down south when an armed gunman had walked into a school and shot several innocent children. This happened way too often, but more in the States than anywhere else. And secretly, Mrs. Cohen was glad they lived on Prince Edward Island, in a country where guns weren’t carried around openly like they were in some states.
She put her hand on her son’s shoulder. “David, we celebrate that light to keep the darkness away,” she said. “It may seem like there isn’t anything we can do when bad things happen, but if we just keep remembering that there is light, it will always defeat the darkness.”
Neither David or Esther were convinced by this. “The light didn’t save those kids,” Esther said with a lit in her voice. “If it can’t do that, why should we celebrate it?”
Mrs. Cohen just sighed. This was going to be a really hard year. “Just try to think about what I said, okay?” She leaned over and kissed her children on the top of their heads.
But later that night, David and Esther were no closer to finding the light, or sleep, than they had been at supper. David lay awake for hours staring up at the ceiling. All he could see in his mind were the images in the news paper article that had shattered his world in an instant. It was such a dark moment that he couldn’t understand how anyone could still see the light in the world.
His sister wasn’t that much older than the poor victims which was why it affected them both so strongly. Just as that thought when through his head, there was a knock on his bedroom door.
“Come in.”
He wasn’t surprised to see Esther walk through the door. He also wasn’t surprised to see that there were tear tracks on her cheeks.
Without a word, David opened his arms and let his sister fall into them. No words were needed in a moment like this.
How long the two of them sat there, they didn’t know. But when David opened his eyes again, the room seemed slightly brighter. He looked around. On his bedside table was a small oil lamp. He always had it there every Hanukkah, since it represented the lamp that’s one-day supply had somehow lasted eight. It was just a model so it had never been lit. But now, to David’s astonishment, a tiny flame was flickering at the lamp’s tip.
Esther noticed it too. “How did that happen?” she asked. Thinking that it might start a fire, Esther leaned over and tried to blow the flame out. But it didn’t go out. It didn’t even flicker. The tiny flame at the tip of the lamp remained as steady as it had been before.
Esther tried to blow it out again and again. Then David tried too. Still, the flame didn’t flicker at all. The two kids stared at this wonder for a long time. This lamp wasn’t supposed to be lit at all, and yet here was a flame that refused to go out.
Then David and Esther looked at each other. Perhaps they weren’t supposed to put this light out. Maybe it was trying to tell them not to put their lights out.
With that thought in their minds, David lay back down on his bed, and Esther sat on her knees with her hands and head resting on her brother’s bedside table. Both of them kept staring at the lamp until they fell asleep. And as they slept, they saw something.
It wasn’t exactly a dream, but it came to them like one. In it, they saw a young woman who’d been knocked down by a couple of jerks pick herself back up again. She looked like she had quite a few scratches on her, but she looked okay.
She glared at the backs of the people who had hurt her. It looked as though she was considering yelling something at them, but then David and Esther saw her clearly decide that wasn’t the way to go. So instead, she continued walking as if nothing had happened. When she told her friends about it, they told her she had done the right thing by not yelling back.
“You’re a better person than they are,” they said. “You shouldn’t sink to their level.”
“Thanks guys,” the woman said.
David and Esther woke up as if a light switch had been turned on. They both immediately looked at the lamp. Sure enough, the tiny flame was still there. And now they were sure that it was no ordinary flame.
“Esther?” came an anxious voice from outside. “Where are you?”
“I’m in David’s room, Mom,” said Esther, quickly getting up.
Their mother opened the door. “What are you doing in here?” she asked.
“I couldn’t sleep,” said Esther.
“And you wanted to . . .” She stopped. “David? What is this?” She had spotted the flame at the tip of David’s lamp.
“I don’t know,” said David. “But I think we should leave it like this for now.”
“Okay,” said Mrs. Cohen. “Just be careful with that.”
“Sure,” said Esther. She knew that neither her nor her brother would want to touch the thing that had shown them a bit of light last night.
On the second night of Hanukkah, David and Esther again sat quietly at the dinner table. They had not told anyone about what they had seen last night, but David knew that his sister would want to join him in his room again tonight. He himself was really hoping that the little lamp would show the two of them something even more hopeful this evening.
It seemed to take forever for night to come. When it finally did, and David was in bed, the tiny flame in the lamp was still there. It made the room slightly less dark, but after what he’d been feeling lately, David found that he liked it that way.
Knock, knock, went something on his door.
“Is that you, Esther?”
“Yes, it is,” said Esther ’s voice. “Can I come in?”
David reached up and opened the door. He wasn’t surprised to see that Esther was carrying two blankets over her shoulder and had a pillow tucked under her arm.
“I figured I’d be here all night,” she said. “Might as well be comfortable.”
She put one blanket on the floor, set the pillow at the end of it, then lay down with the other blanket on top of her.
“You okay like that?” asked David.
Esther nodded. Slowly, the two of them fell asleep. And once again, a vision came to them. This time they saw a man on the streets with a coin hat at his feet. Most people walked by without a backward glance, but one little boy stopped and looked back. Without hesitation, he walked over to the man and put a coin in his hat.
It wasn’t much, but it came from the boy’s heart. And that was often all that people like the homeless man needed.
David and Esther opened their eyes. Both of them definitely felt better now. But they knew that they would need a few more visions if they wanted to completely heal from what had happened.
“Do you think we’ll keep getting these visions every Hanukkah night?” Esther asked hopefully.
“I certainly hope so,” said David. “I don’t wanna feel down all season.”
“Me neither,” agreed Esther.
The third night of Hanukkah was when David and Esther and their cousins all played dreidel together. The cousins had been worried that David and Esther wouldn’t be up for that, given how they’d been feeling, but thanks to what the lamp had shown them the last two nights, the Cohen siblings were more than happy to join in the fun.
“Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel,” they sang, “I made it out of clay, and when it’s dry and ready, the dreidel I will pay.” It was always so much fun every year.
But even as David and Esther sat there enjoying themselves, they could feel despair at the back of their minds trying to grab hold of them. What they’d seen so far was comforting, but not enough to completely get rid of the heartbreaking reality of what had happened last week.
The two of them almost couldn’t wait to get to bed that night. When David turned out his light, he saw that the tiny flame at the end of the lamp was still there. And he found himself praying that it would show him and Esther something again tonight.
No sooner did that thought enter his head when he heard Esther knock on his bedroom door. He opened it and didn’t say anything when his sister set her sheets down on the floor beside his bed. Perhaps this strange lamp would bring them closer too. Not that they weren’t already close, but making any relationship closer was never a bad thing.
As the kids closed their eyes that night, they did see something. Though not what they expected. This night, they saw two men sitting at a bar drinking themselves silly. David and Esther may have been young, but they knew all about being drunk.
They were beginning to wonder how could this be showing them to keep the light on, when a younger man walked over to the drunken men and said “I’ve called you two a cab. I think you should go home now.”
The vision ended right there.
David and Esther looked at each other. It took a moment for the meaning of what they had seen to sink in. What the lamp was saying was that it didn’t matter whether or not the men at the bar had accepted the ride home or not. What mattered was that the younger man was willing to help them, even though he didn’t know them. That was definitely a sign that no one should put the light out so easily.
Hanukkah was almost half-over now, and David and Esther ’s parents could see that they were getting better, though they weren’t sure how. Neither of the kids were sure that they could explain what was going on, but they could tell that their parents understood.
“Do you want to spend the night in David’s room again?” their mother asked Esther the next evening.
“Yes please,” said Esther. “His lamp has been showing us great things each night.”
Mrs. Cohen just sighed. “I don’t know what’s going on in there, but I can tell that it’s working for you,” she said. “All right, you two can share a room.”
Later that night, David and Esther lay in bed in their now-shared room. Their parents had brought up an inflatable mattress for Esther so she didn’t have to sleep on the floor.
But on this fourth night of Hanukkah, something else was bothering Esther. “David?” she said quietly.
“Yes?” her brother replied, raising his head.
“How long do you think this will last? And what if it isn’t enough to make what we’ve been feeling go away forever?”
David was silent for a moment. Then he said “I don’t think anything can make pain go away forever, Esther. But I do think that what that lamp is showing us is that we shouldn’t let it overpower us. Maybe that’s all we need to see.”
“Okay, you’re right,” said Esther. “It’s just been hard this past week.”
“I know,” said David. “But it’s probably been harder on others than it’s been on us.” He didn’t say what he meant out loud, but Esther knew that he was talking about the victims’ families. With that, the two of them closed their eyes and lay back down.
“What are you doing out here?” said a young man to a little girl who was sitting on the front step of his house.
“I’m lost,” the girl said with a sob. “I don’t know where my Mommy is.”
“Okay, you can come in and get warm,” said the man. “I’ll help you find your parents.”
“R-really?” said the girl. “But mommy says not to go into strange houses.”
“It’s okay,” said the man. “You can trust me.”
The girl seemed hesitant, but she took the man’s hand and they walked inside.
David and Esther were both smiling when they woke up. That man definitely had a kind heart. So much so that he was willing to help a lost child find her way home. Surely there were more kind people out there than there were evil ones.
In fact, as David and Esther thought about it, they found that they couldn’t think of a time when they had encountered a really bad person.
“Maybe the light really is stronger,” said Esther. But she and her brother could both tell that they still needed to see more visions from this mysterious lamp.
On night five of Hanukkah, the Cohen family always had an oil-fired dinner. If David and Esther were honest, it wasn’t their favourite tradition, but given what they’d been feeling these last few days they were more than happy to participate in anything that would get them out of the bad state they’d been in.
Everyone could see that they were getting better, but they could also tell that the kids were being cautious about the dinner time conversation. As though just thinking about the horrific tragedy would undo everything the lamp had done for them.
That evening, David and Esther’s grandfather tucked them in. As he did, Esther asked “Grandpa, did you ever feel like you didn’t want to celebrate Hanukkah, or any occasion?”
There was a long silence. David knew what his sister was thinking. Their grandpa was a veteran of Afghanistan.
Arthur Cohen looked at his granddaughter. Then he sighed and said “No, my dear. I saw a lot of terrible things out there, but I never stopped celebrating occasions like Hanukkah. In fact, that may be what kept me sane out there.”
He looked at the lit lamp. “I never had anything like this happen to me,” he said. “But it seems that you two need whatever it is.” He leaned over and kissed David and Esther on their heads. “Good night. Sleep well.”
David and Esther nodded, then curled up hoping to see some more light.
“There you are,” said a young mother. She ran to a small boy who was sitting under a tree. “Alan, why did you run away?”
“You don’t care about me,” said the boy. “All you care about is finding a replacement for Dad. I don’t want a new dad, Mom. I was fine with you.”
The mother’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry Alan. You’re right, I haven’t been thinking about you much at all these last few months. I just thought finding someone new would make everything better. But it won’t, will it.” She put her hand on her son’s shoulder. “But Alan, Sam is a good man, and I think he does care for you. Why don’t we give him a chance?”
Alan sighed, and then nodded. And the mother and son sat together for a quiet moment.
David and Esther opened their eyes smiling more broadly than ever. Even someone who was in a bad place could feel the light if it was just given the opportunity to shine.
“I’m starting to feel kind of bad about not wanting to celebrate Hanukkah this year,” said Esther. “If seems like, everywhere we look the light keeps shining.”
“Me to,” said David. Then he looked at the lamp and saw that it was still lit. “But I don’t want to ever feel that way again, so let’s keep listening to what this lamp has to say.”
“Yeah, good idea,” said Esther.
The two kids spent the sixth day of Hanukkah playing outside in the snow. They were the only Jewish family on the block, but no one let that get in the way of having fun with them. To most of their friends, David and Esther were kids like them and they were more than happy to play together whatever their religion.
Just before everyone went back inside, Esther screwed up her courage and asked her best friend Laura what she thought about the tragedy that had been eating into her and her brother. Before she could even finished speaking, Laura stuffed her fingers in her ears.
“Please don’t talk about that,” she said.
“Does it really bother you too?” Esther asked, softly.
“Yes, it does,” said Laura. “But I don’t want to let it ruin our holidays.”
“What do you mean?” Esther asked.
“If we keep dwelling on bad things, we won’t see any of the good things,” said Laura. “At least that’s what my Daddy said. And I really want this Christmas to be good, and I want your Hanukkah to be good too. And I’ll bet those kids do too from where they are.”
Esther hadn’t even thought of that. But perhaps Laura was right. The victims of any tragedy wouldn’t want it to ruin the holidays for people they didn’t know. That night, as she and David were falling asleep again, what they saw gave her confirmation on that.
A small girl, who looked a lot like Laura, was standing next to a sad looking old man and holding out a rose to him. “You shouldn’t be so sad all the time,” she said, handing him the flower.
“Why are you doing this?” the man asked. “Other people deserve it more than I do.”
“But I think you need it more,” said the girl. “Everyone needs a little happiness in their lives.”
The man still didn’t look convinced. Then the girl said “My mom and dad have a place where people come to get cheered up. Maybe you should come and see it.”
The man looked at her again, and the tiniest glint of a smile crossed his lips.
Esther smiled again as she opened her eyes. Clearly, that girl wasn’t willing to give up on the light, even if it took several attempts to turn someone else’s light on.
“Do you think that was your friend?” David asked.
“I don’t know,” said Esther. “But I hope it was.” Then she smiled broader. “I’m feeling way better now!”
“Me too,” said David. “I wonder if that’s all we need to see.”
They both glanced at the lamp and saw that the tiny flame was still there. They both shrugged. There were two nights of Hanukkah left. Maybe there was more for them to see. But as it often happens, things get worse before they got better.
The next morning, as David and Esther were coming downstairs, they found their parents staring at the radio with grim expressions. Neither of them wanted to hear what was going on but it slipped through before they could turn away.
The perpetrator of the horrific tragedy had shot himself when he heard the cops coming, but now it turned out that his mother had been arrested too. During a silent vigil for the children last night, she had shown up and practically bragged about how proud she was of her son. The cops had taken her in immediately after that, but the damage had been done.
“She’s crazy!” cried Esther. “I don’t think I want to know what goes on in that family.” She ran over to her mother and wrapped her arms around her legs. “You’d never want me to kill anyone, would you?” she asked.
“Of course not, my love,“ said Mrs. Cohen. “The woman is probably very unstable, which may explain the horrific actions of her son.
“I think we’ve heard enough,” said her husband. And he shut the radio off.
As the kids lay in bed that night, they stared desperately and the glowing lamp, knowing they needed something really good tonight or everything they had seen would be undone. The thought that someone’s mother would want their kid to kill people made them feel as sick as ever, and it took ages for them to fall asleep. But when they did, their prayers were answered.
A family was sitting around the table in silence. David and Esther had a feeling that they were looking at people who had been directly affected by the tragedy. Then, the youngest son looked up and said “We should send her a card.”
“The woman who interrupted us last night?” the father asked.
“Yes,” said the boy. “I think she’s just sad that she lost her son and she wants others to hurt like she is. What she needs is a way to get better.”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” said the mother.
The vision ended there.
David and Esther looked at each other. That boy had been right. Perhaps the mother was just as sad as everyone else and was hiding it under a cloak of pride so thick that she couldn’t see anyone else’s pain.
“Maybe the guy was in terrible pain too,” said David. “We never knew anything about him, so we shouldn’t make any assumptions.”
Esther nodded in agreement.
As the last day of Hanukkah passed, the Cohen siblings began to feel like something bigger than just a holiday was ending. For the first seven nights of the Festival of Light they had been treated to beautiful images of light overcoming darkness. But would tonight be the last one? And if it were, would everything they’d seen be enough to stop them from feeling the way they had again?
Then, as the two of them were staring at the fully-lit menorah, a bright light suddenly enveloped them. And they saw a young man standing in a church in front of a large crowd and telling them about an experience he’d had in heaven. Just as he was finishing, a young girl ran up onto the stage and shock his hand.
Okay, that looks nice, thought David. But not as convincing as …
But then he stopped. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a police officer with tears poring down his face. “That’s her,” he said, over and over again. “That’s her.”
David felt Esther’s hand grip his arm very tightly, as if she knew something he didn’t. He wanted to ask what was wrong, but his heart told him he would soon find out. Someone who appeared to be the young man’s father was looking at the teary cop with a confused expression. “I don’t know her name,” the cop said. “I didn’t know she was here. But that’s the girl who survived the shooting.”
David and Esther both gasped. They had heard that there had been one young girl in the school room that the shooter had attacked who had survived by lying as still as she could. It must have worked because the shooter had walked out of the room, allowing her to escape. You’d think something like that would completely traumatize a kid for life, and yet there she was, running up to a stage to shake someone’s hand in front of a huge crowd of people. If that wasn’t a sign that the Light was stronger than the Darkness, David and Esther didn’t know what was.
Just as soon as they thought that, the image vanished and they were back in their home. Immediately, they threw their arms around each other and basked in their newfound glow of hope.
“Kids, are you alright?” came their mother’s concerned voice.
“Yes, we are,” said David. “We’re very alright.”
“We just saw the survivor shake someone’s hand in front of everyone,” said Esther.
Mr. and Mrs. Cohen looked at each other. “Well, I don’t know what’s been going on these last few days,” said Mr. Cohen. “But it seams that it was very good for you.” He put his arm around his children. “Now shall we go have one last Hanukkah supper?”
“That sounds like a great idea,” said Esther.
As the family sat down, David and Esther told their parents what they had seen each night of Hanukkah and how the tiny flame on the lamp had never gone out. “You guys were right,” said David. “We should celebrate the good things that happen to us even though there is evil in this world. I think, if we choose not to do something good because of tragedies like this, that’s when the Darkness wins.”
Everyone nodded in agreement, and they all spent the rest of the evening eating a delicious meal and singing their favourite songs.
Oh Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah Come light the menorah Let's have a party We'll all dance the hora. Gather 'round the table, we'll give you a treat. A Sivivon to play with and latkes to eat
And while we are playing the candles are burning low. One for each night, they shed a sweet light to remind us of days long ago
One for each night, they shed a sweet light to remind us of days long ago
A short story of mine was included in an anthology of short fiction by fourteen of Port Town Publishing Company's authors. It is out of print and no longer available except as a download. Contact me at charlenetess@yahoo.com if you want it.
