First Fig
Three months before her passing, on a misted, heavy night where the air itself seemed to carry a quiet sorrow, we found ourselves doing something we had done so many times before - searching for a film. Something to fill the silence, or perhaps to sit gently beside it.
That was when it appeared. My Oxford Years. A new release, almost by chance.
The story unfolded in England, within the old stone walls of Oxford. It followed an ambitious woman from New York, full of life and direction, who unexpectedly found herself drawn into love with her professor - a PHD student, teaching poetry and literature. But beneath the surface of that romance was a truth she did not yet know. He had terminal cancer. And he had chosen not to continue treatment, choosing instead to live whatever time remained fully, without being reduced to treatment regimes.
At the time, given where we stood in our own lives, it did not feel like just a film. It felt as though something had reached through the screen and met us where we were. Quietly. Honestly.
As the story unfolded, it carried with it fragments of poetry - lines from those who had long tried to make sense of life, love, and loss. And among them, one found its way into us. Given the uncertainty of her life in that period. It did not ask for attention. It simply stayed.
A poem titled ‘First Fig’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay, written in 1918:
“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!”
It is a simple image, at first glance. But the more you sit with it, the more it reveals.
A candle is not meant to burn at both ends. To do so is to accept that it will not last as long. And yet, in that very act, it burns brighter. Warmer. More vividly. It becomes something more than it was ever designed to be.
And maybe that is what the poem understands - that life is not always about preservation. Not always about stretching time as far as it will go. Sometimes, it is about presence. About how deeply you are willing to feel. How fully you are willing to love. And how bright you are willing to shine.
Because to burn at both ends is not always recklessness. Sometimes, it is simply what happens when you do not hold yourself back. When you choose to give your whole self to the moments and the people that matter. When you accept, quietly, that it may not last - and love anyway.
The world will always teach you to be careful. To conserve. To think in terms of longevity. And there is wisdom in that. But there is another truth that lives alongside it - that some things are not meant to be experienced halfway. Some connections arrive with a depth that asks something of you. Something real. Something complete.
And maybe that is the point.
Because when something is lived fully - when love is given without hesitation, when presence is offered without distraction - it leaves something behind. A kind of light. Not loud or demanding, but steady. Lingering. It stays in memory. In the quiet reshaping of who you become.
So even if it does not last the night, it is not wasted.
A life, a moment, a love - they do not need to be long to be meaningful.
They only need to be real.
When they are, they leave a lovely light behind.
And she did.
