The shortening days: bringing a hand-poured candle to a new mother

Süleyman Taha was born in October, and that October darkened early. In our flat in Konya the curtains were drawn at five and it was night by six. My mother came from Zonguldak with a jar in her bag: a cream-coloured candle she had poured herself. “You bring light to a loğusa,” she said, and set it on the kitchen table.

For forty days that candle burned every evening. While Süleyman slept, while I drank tea, while Abdullah came in from work. At the end of the forty days a finger’s depth of wax was left in the bottom of the jar. The jar is still here.

Why light for a new mother?

In Anatolia you never visit a loğusa — a woman in the forty days after giving birth — empty-handed; but what you bring changes from region to region. What my mother knew from Zonguldak was light: an oil lamp once, later a candle. It was believed that the light in a new mother’s house must not go out for forty days, lest the dark “press down” on mother and baby.

Nobody believes that now. But bring a candle to a woman who has given birth in autumn and the same thing still happens: her house is a little less dark for one more evening. Not a belief — a hand held out. “The nights are long; let this be with you.”

Pouring my own

When my mother’s candle was gone I learned to pour my own. Around the time Muammer Esat was born a neighbour of mine was a loğusa, and I had nothing to take. So: the kitchen, a saucepan, the way my mother described it.

Pouring a candle asks for less patience than embroidery but the same quiet. Beeswax melts slowly; it cannot be hurried. As it melts the kitchen smells of honey. Then the wick in the centre of the jar, the wax poured slowly down the side, and the wait. One night. In the morning the jar has set, the surface smooth, the colour cream.

My first candle sank in the middle. My neighbour lit it anyway. Next time I learned to pour a second layer. The later ones came out even, but it is the sunken one I remember most.

A candle in autumn, flowers in summer

In summer a new mother gets flowers, gets fruit. In autumn, a candle. I think the season itself asks for it: the days shorten, life turns indoors, light becomes precious. A jar candle is a small warmth in the middle of a long evening — beside the tea glass, while the baby sleeps.

And there is the candle’s silence. Flowers talk; gift wrap talks. A candle doesn’t talk; it burns. In those days, what a woman who has just given birth most often wants is exactly that — something that doesn’t talk.

Pouring a candle at home

• Beeswax or soy wax. From a craft shop or a beekeeper. Beeswax smells and burns slowly; soy is cheaper and melts more easily. Don’t bring paraffin into a baby’s home.
• A jar. A jam jar, a tea glass, a small ceramic pot. Wide-mouthed, so the wick stays centred.
• A wick and a pencil. Stick the cotton wick to the bottom of the jar with a drop of wax; lay the top end over a pencil across the jar’s mouth so it stands straight.
• A bain-marie. Water in a saucepan, a small pot inside it, wax inside that. Don’t let it boil; let it melt. For scent, a few drops of lavender oil into the melted wax.
• Pour slowly, wait a night. If the centre sinks, pour a thin second layer the next day. Trim the wick to half a centimetre.
• A date under the jar. A small label: whose forty days, which autumn.

If there is no time to pour

A visit to a new mother is often sudden — the news comes, you go the next day. There is no night to let a candle set. Even then, you don’t go empty-handed.

A gift for a new mum

A named plush bunny and little shoes make a tender gift for a family welcoming a new baby.

Add their name

The bottom of the jar

The jar from my mother’s candle is still on the kitchen shelf, a finger of cream wax in the bottom — what is left of forty days. Every October, when it gets dark early, I look at it. Then I take out the saucepan. I don’t know whose forty days it will be this autumn. But let the candle be ready.

— Merve Çokal Doğan