My Little Lamp

Newspapers cluttered the floors, the furniture was topsy-turvy, cardboard boxes were stashed everywhere, and in general our house was in a state of complete chaos. It was moving time again. We were packing our things, and relocating to a place we both loved so much, Newfoundland.

We had lived in Nova Scotia all our married lives – 33 years and a few months – more time than we had lived in Newfoundland. It's a beautiful province, with a wonderful people and great climate, and we had made many friends over the years.

But it was time to come home. Never ever had we planned it, never discussed it at any length.

Through all of the years in various towns in Nova Scotia we worked, contributed to the community, and had good lives. But now the treadmill was a little too fast, and we seemed to be on a fast train to nowhere. We had too much house, too much work. We had watched friends in their late 40s and early 50s die, and I had to make a change or I felt I would wither and die without ever getting in a boat, going out on the bay, catching a fish, or having the experience of living near my sisters.

So we made plans to retire. My nursing was so precious to me that the decision was very difficult. My husband led the way, taught me to move on, not to look back with regret.

We placed our house on the market, thinking that in a few months or so it would sell. It was June so we would have the summer to make all sorts of preparations. That was not to be, because the house sold the same day it was listed.

So the rush was on to get moving, and quickly. The farewells, the summer's heat, running out of time, selling off things that were now just burdensome, all very physically taxing and bittersweet.

One day, in the middle of all the upheaval, even though pushed for time, I took a precious possession off the shelf and sat on a crowded sofa with it in my hands. The tears rolled down my face as I carefully held and brushed the dust off the dear old lamp.

It was a kerosene oil lamp that had been mine for many years. It was in a metal stand, or hanger, with a hole in the back for hanging on a wall. It stood 16 inches high, with a fragile glass chimney that was 14 inches around the widest part. A decorative pattern in white ran around that widest part of the chimney and a shiny reflector was mounted on the metal holder, and when lit the light would reflect beautifully, doubling the effect of the flame.

This was no ordinary lamp.

When I was a student at the Grace General Hospital School of Nursing from 1966 to 1969, I, of course, had to do a stint in the well-baby nursery as part of obstetrics, and I loved it. I was 18 years old in 1967, and Mrs. Smallwood was the head nurse in the nursery on the second floor. One day she was going through a closet and all those lamps were sitting in a row on a shelf. I asked her about them.

She told me stories of being a student herself, of those lamps hanging on the walls, of nurses feeding the babies in the middle of the night by the lamplight, and of the beautiful picture it brought to her mind. I picked a lamp of the shelf and asked her what they would do with them now.

"Oh, I suppose they'll go to the dump, nobody cares about them now," she replied.

"Well, I do," I remarked.

"Well Jarvis, if you want one, take it, it's yours! But promise to take care of it!"

I promised I would do just that, and walked away with my little lamp.

Little did I know that my lamp would follow me to Grand Bank, St. John's, and various places in Nova Scotia, and always would occupy a special spot in my home wherever I was. Many people would ask about it, many people admired it, and the most amazing thing of all is that through all the moves, packing and tossing around it suffered, it never, ever broke!

It sits here on my desk as I write today, back in Newfoundland: My lamp and I, still together.

It was used once or twice during power failures when winter storms hit. It was knocked off a shelf by someone looking behind it for a book. It was in a box that a moving van lost, but was eventually found and returned to me still unbroken.

So I sat in my chaotic household that day and held my lamp. To me it signified my life, my career, and my own resilience that at times I thought was gone. I carefully, very carefully, packed it for the journey back to Newfoundland.

Maybe some cold winter evening, I will trim the wick again, and light my lamp. And maybe I'll see the image of nurses in starchy white uniforms feeding the babies under that golden glow. The lap has lasted and stood the test of time, and now it's up to me to see if I, too, can stand the test of time.

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