Up in Flames

My senior year of high school, my house burned down. It started in my room (where, thankfully, I was not sleeping that night) and consumed everything. It left me and my family with little more than the clothes on our backs. But we had our lives and we'd saved all our pets. Even as we sobbed and cried as we watched our house reduced to cinders, we were grateful for the things we didn't lose.

But losing your home hurts. A lot. It breaks off a piece of your heart when you realize what all you did lose. Not the electronics, the furniture, the appliances, but the photos, the artwork from when my brother and I were children, the home videos. The few things that survived were even more precious to us.

And when you lose all the things that make you take life for granted, you're also humbled. It makes you realize how shallow and silly some things are, and though I would never want to go through the experience again, it made me a better person.

One of the first people my age to show up to help us was the girl I considered my arch-rival in high school. We competed against each other in everything: choir, drama, teacher's favorites, etc. She came in her cute clothes and started digging through the ashes trying to find things. I couldn't believe my eyes. And then she offered to take me clothes shopping. I lost it. I started bawling and the first words out of my mouth were, "I don't even have a bra!" (In fact, the only clothing I had was a pair of Tigger pajama pants and a overlarge shirt that I'd experimented on with fabric paint.) To which she said, "You can have mine!"

I was flabbergasted. Here was this girl whom I had resented and, in fact, had been jealous of and she was offering me, literally, the bra off her back. I cried and laughed and viewed her in a completely different light after that.

Another thing you find out when you lose everything, is how much people really love you. I was never close to my step-dad, but when I came back from shopping he was digging through what was left of my room trying to find a piece of jewelry because he knew it had been important to me. He'd even enlisted his friends. My mom had always told me that he loved me in his own way, but it wasn't until that moment that I realized how much.

Those are the things that you gain even when you lose everything: understanding, love, compassion, and humility. Those things make the disaster easier to get through, as well as the support of the community. We were helped so much by our neighbors, friends and schoolmates. Because of them, we were able to get back on our feet.

Thus, the point of this post. Janet Reid's friends lost their house (and, sadly, their pets) in a fire. Though they might be strangers, I ask that all of you please give them your support and prayers. Everything helps, even if it is just someone reaching out through cyberspace and saying, If you need anything...

Please give them a virtual hug or donate.

Thank you and God bless!