A Candle for Easter

What do you do to prepare for Easter? Grandmother lights this candle. Whenever I visit our Moldovan partners Petru & Olesea Ciochina, I also spend some time with Petru's grandmother. They live on the same plot of land on the edge of Nisporeni. This time Grandmother told me, as usual, about her arthritis. She shared her concern for a son who lives in the conflict area in eastern Ukraine. And when I commented on her unusual candle, she showed me how to make one.
1. Take a clear glass and fill it with oil. Any oil will do. She uses sunflower seed.
2. Roll a wick from combed cotton. She got the cotton from the pharmacy. She showed me how she spun it into a wick on her knee (!).

3. Punch a hole in the lid to a metal can. Pull the wick through and light.

She told me she burnt the candle all through Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter. She had made some for the neighbors, too, who also followed this custom. When asked why, she said because the church told her to. Maybe young people didn't follow that anymore, she said, but she did what the church told her to.
In her case, the church is Eastern Orthodox. The candle stands in a corner set aside for an icon and other religious symbols.

Translation difficulties kept me from probing deeper into the meaning of the candle for Grandmother. Nothing, however, keeps me from asking the same questions of myself. What do I do to prepare for Easter? And why do I do it?