when i was in sixth grade i had my first real life-changing experience...
it was november 11, 1988...a cold, rainy day. it was a special day in the life of a lathrop sixth grader. we had spent months preparing for our field trip to exchange city and that was the day we finally got to put our hard-earned skills to the test as we ran our own little city. my mom had come to help and i remember feeling special that she was one of the parents chosen to come, that she had wanted to be there with me that day. i won some drawing...i never won anything, but that day i had...while i don't remember what it was, i remember knowing that the last time i saw it was when i laid it on the kitchen table that afternoon. sarah had her friend, laura, over to spend the night...they played the piano and were excited because it was her first time to stay at our house. i called my dad to tell him to meet us at the local bar for dinner. before leaving we closed the two doors that would enclose our little dog, buttons, in the kitchen and family room while we were gone. she seemed to like the t.v. so we would leave it on for her and she would be calm while we were gone.
at ten til six we drove the two and a half blocks to the main street of my hometown. i remember thinking that it seemed crowded, overly crowded even for a friday night...the little restaurant/bar full of all the town locals...most of which we knew, and it wasn't long after we ordered that mom went to visit with someone and i sat with dad telling him about our day. "red, red wine" playing on the juke box...the events that happened next are a mix of a blur and movie being played in slow motion...
"are you jack canaday?" the waitress asked my father (oddly, she happened to be the one person in there who didn't actually know who he was.)
"yes. why?" he answered.
"someone just called and said your back porch was on fire." she told us before walking off to get back to work.
in a matter of seconds, radios started buzzing and the room became even more chaotic as the several random volunteer firemen who just happened to be eating dinner were called to duty. i remember absolute confusion....my mom and dad trying to figure out what was going on and then they were gone telling us to stay there and someone would be back for us. my sisters were instantly afraid asking questions that i had no answers to. no one stopped me as i walked to the front door to look outside. the sound of the sirens was deaffening, the lights so bright...as i watched the firetrucks race out of the fire station in front of me, making the two right-hand turns that would lead them to the smoke and flames i could see from the old brick house two short blocks away. i have no idea how much time went by, but eventually my neighbor came for us. we took the back way to their house because the entire area was blocked with emergency vehicles, cars of friends and those just needing to see what was going on.
i had kept it together until we walked up to the backside of their house...right next to ours, i was struck with the magnitude of the situation. the smell of smoke thick in the cold, damp november air. water still poured from hoses as men i had known my entire life worked hard to save our home. my entire body gave out with the weight of the reality unfolding in front of me. their house was full of family friends, mom was making phone calls...the first person to hug me was my friend, catie's, mom. our parents had grown up together, her dad one of the volunteers who had gotten the call...the call that came without word as to whether or not we were home but only that it was the canaday's house on center street.
what we later learned was that the fire started right around six...just minutes after we had left. there was an explosion of some kind in the family room that blew out all the windows in the back half of the house. the heat so intense the blinds in our bedroom at the front of the house melted to the window. the explosion blew the doors open and somehow buttons managed to run behind a water bed and the long arms of a dear friend pulled her out. i will never forget how i felt when he brought her to me as i sat on our neighbor's front porch surrounded by the random things firefighters had pulled out of our home at my parents' request.
there is something about knowing you don't even have a toothbrush...or a change of clothes...nevermind all of the things that matter to you when you're 11 years old. the sense of loss i felt in those hours was immeasurable. my entire sense of home destroyed in minutes. true to form, our little town pulled together for us like a small army...the first of many times in my life i've received the generosity of others and felt the grace of God when nothing else mattered. we walked through our destroyed home that next morning...dad giving us trash bags telling us to collect whatever we wanted to try and save. catie was with me and we found our barbies...still in tact, but in desperate need of cleaning. notes from friends, treasured books, many family photos and home videos all gone.
that evening we went as a family to get something new to wear to church the next day and then my next memory is of that sunday...my dad and gran standing up in front of our church family as he thanked them for everything that had been done for us...it was the first time i saw him cry and it almost killed me. in those moments i saw him as human, as a man strong enough to stand before his peers and weep out of thanks and exhaustion...and i've never forgotten how my vision of him changed with the example he set for us that sunday morning.
i battled nightmares for months...had the timing been just a moment or two different, we would have been there...likely in that room. the details varied with each dream, but the outcome was always the same.
the next year was spent with the five of us in my uncle's tiny two-bedroom fixer-upper. my sisters and i shared a super-single water bed and as much as i couldn't wait for my own brand-new room, i felt lonely in those first weeks without them next to me.
home is many things...an idea defined only by those who live within it. i learned in a matter of minutes that a home can be destroyed, but the family within it is ultimately all that matters. i grew up a lot in those months following our fire, maybe quite a bit overnight. my childhood marked with a turning point that taught me nothing tangible is permanent...my innocence removed just a bit with the reality of loss. a lot happened that day. my little safety net was removed, but i was quickly shown there were plenty of people willing to catch us. i learned that life can change just like that, but found the value of others to be much greater than i had even known.
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