G-Mama Lights The Way

A few years ago, in preparation for a whole family beach trip, my grandmother, at the height of her QVC shopping days, purchased small lanterns for use by each family member.

For as long as I can remember, my grandmother’s house has been decorated with candles. My sister always enjoyed lighting the candles before family meals…

Until G-mama discovered battery-operated candles. At that point, the wax candles in G-mama’s house, slowly but surely, were replaced by battery-operated candles that light with a button rather than a flame. During the replacement process, the battery-operated candle movement moved its way into the rest of the family and now many of our houses are lit by candles that won’t burn down the house…

They won’t burn down a campsite either.

We should know. G-mama’s light sources lit the way for us to set up camp at Stone Mountain on Friday night.

I can’t remember the exact numbers, but I think that G-mama showed up on our campsite through two small lanterns, one battery-operated candle, one jar candle, and three taper candles. Griffin and I had to change the battery-operated candle so that it could light my little tent. But it worked with new batteries and was super helpful when I crawled into bed each night…and when I heard rain pouring down on Saturday night and had to rig a little curtain out of a Nemo sheet because I hadn’t put the rain guard over my door before going to sleep.

The small lanterns helped us change the batteries in the above candle as well as the big lantern whose batteries were dying.

But it was the jar candle and taper candles that proved most helpful—a jar candle that was really ugly because it had once been melted and taper candles that were old and partially burned but had been abandoned. Naturally, my sister didn’t pack candlesticks. Who packs candlesticks for camping? So we made our own. Out of plastic water bottles.

With a little bit of water to anchor the bottle, the plastic water bottle served as the perfect camping candlestick. And when the candle burned down, it dropped through the bottle opening, landed in the water, and the flame extinguished. Or maybe the flame extinguished before hitting the water. I don’t know. I wasn’t watching. All I know is that the candle was burning one moment and it was safely out the next. Which was really neat. And I know that just one candle provided enough light to penetrate the darkness.

After Amelia and I returned from our first trip to the potty on Friday, my sister asked us if the bathhouse was very far. Amelia responded, “No. We were talking the whole time.” While her answer was very cute and heartwarming—and a testament to her extraverted nature—it wasn’t completely correct. Our campsite was a few minutes away from the bathhouse—not somewhere you’d want to venture to in the middle of the night. But it was easy to find on that last night-time trip to running water and electricity because of…the bright light of the taper candle.

It was a beacon to a campsite full of love and laughter and light…provided by G-mama.