As One Bird, a companion to Broken
by candace vance
We scandalized my sister when we got married. Not by getting married, but by one moment in our wedding. After lighting the unity candle, we chose not to extinguish our individual candles. Perhaps you are familiar with the candle ritual. Before the wedding ceremony, the mothers of the bride and groom light a candle for their children who are about to be married. Between the two candles sits a larger candle, waiting to be lit. During the ceremony, the bride and groom take the candles that their mothers had lit and join them to make one flame, which they use to light the unity candle. They then extinguish their individual candles. We skipped that last part.
I’ve often thought about that choice.
Marriage is a mystery. The unity candle is a visual representation of that mysterious joining that occurs in the sacrament of vows. It feels like theatre to me--like an aspirational bit of theatre. The couple acts out their hope for the future: that they will become one, that the fruits of their union will be more beautiful, more light-filled, more light-giving than their separate lives could have been on their own. That they will have the courage to put each other first, the tenacity to endure, the creativity to forge a life together. Maybe we should have blown out the candles after all.
But life has a way…
I came into marriage knowing how to care for others. Life had presented me with enough opportunity to practice. What I didn’t know was how to receive care. For better and for worse, life has since presented me with circumstances to learn.
Some of you know our story of 2019. It’s been five years exactly since I stepped out the kitchen door on Valentine’s Day and slipped on the ice. It was a fluke accident. The bones in my leg shattered from the knee down. As they cut the jeans off my lower leg, I saw my bones sticking out of my skin. I was told I might lose my leg. I was told I might never walk again. Three surgeries, months of physical therapy, from the wheelchair to the walker to the crutches to the cane, I was healed. And then I was diagnosed with cancer. A fourth surgery, daily radiation, and medical oncology. It’s been five years of what felt like one extinguishing moment after another.
Sam was with me every step (literally) of the way (as was the rest of our incredible family/friend group). When they told Sam I would have to move to a rehab center, Sam quit his job and brought me home to care for me full-time. When I felt ashamed of my limp (now completely gone), Sam took me dancing. When I was embarrassed about my hard-earned scars, Sam encouraged me to audition for the play where I would enter in a bikini (and I did it). When I was just so depleted from the long trial, he made me laugh. Tenderly, quietly, gently, he was with me every moment.
Did this cost Sam? Of course it did. Financially, for sure. Did he miss out on career opportunities? Yes. Did it cost him emotionally? 100%. It’s devastating to see your beloved in pain.
Which is why we haven’t spoken about it much outside of our closest circle. It left us somewhat broken. But only individually.
Perhaps that’s the greatest mystery of marriage. The flame of the union is somehow big enough to hold us both. Maybe marriage is the long process of giving to each other, but in that giving, the unity flame shines brighter. There is goodness there. There is holiness there. The unity is sacred.
I am grateful to be in a new season, one that is filled with adventure and strength and mischief. Sam and I have always tried to share our artistic lives, primarily in Theatre and Music. Many of you have seen us act together, develop new theatre pieces together, tour with our band. Some of you have come alongside as we’ve sought to raise our family intentionally, welcoming our children into our creative lives while also supporting them to pursue their unique callings. As we continue living into all of this, Sam has invited me into a new venture, perhaps the most costly of all ventures thus far because it requires me to be vulnerable. Sam has asked me to write about his stories and art, using my own voice. I remain more comfortable saying the crafted lines of playwrights, singing the music of other composers, embodying characters different than myself, listening wholeheartedly to the stories of others. And yet…
I am so moved by Sam’s stories. They tap into something true, and almost vibrate with universal experience. The stories seem to skim the surface of the divine, and lift the essence of what it means to be human so that we can see it. We can see ourselves. A better writer than I am—a real writer—Carmiel Banasky, said of Sam’s first book:
“Whimsical yet all-too-real, Sam Vance’s stories are postmodern parables of loss, growth, pride, and the absurdity of life, about searching for meaning in a haystack of meaninglessness. One cannot quite tell, at times, whether they are being offered as a joke or timeless wisdom, and that is their beauty.”
I don’t know that I can say anything better about Sam’s work.
Sam’s art has always been something that he does without me. Not because I’m not welcome in that space, but because I have nothing to offer that space. I can’t draw or paint. But Sam has asked me to write a companion piece to each story in his next compilation. What a gift to be invited into this part of his world—the unity flame keeps getting bigger. I welcome this chance to come behind, through, and around his magnificent work. Throughout the next year, we’ll be releasing video versions of new stories with my thought-pieces to follow. You’ve likely guessed that you’re reading the companion to Sam’s story entitled Broken, which you can find here.
We offer these thoughts, stories, and paintings to you, together, from our separate perspectives. From the flame of our union, but still lit from our individual candles. As One Bird.