Fire!

Saturday, December 5th we were caroling with our family during the Veater Christmas Party (which I will post pics of later). On the way back, as Benji was crossing Main Street, I looked down toward our house and we both saw smoke, much more than normal, coming from the top of a house. All of the sudden, we realized that the house was on fire, and of course the first thing we thought was that it was OUR house!! From up the street, the smoke seemed to be coming from our roof. I screamed to Benji, "That's our house!! That's our house!! Go! Go!" I was panicked, and of course in turn it made our daughter, Jordyn, freaked out. She started yelling, "Mom! Daisy! What about Daisy?!" She started crying as we drove down the road. As we came closer and realized it wasn't our house, we felt a huge relief, but also great sadness for the family whose house was now up in flames. We drove back to our party, and joined them as they walked down Main to see what was going on. They blocked off the whole block and we walked down almost directly across the street from the house. I was able to get a few pictures. Our cousin heard someone on the police radio say there were kids inside, but just as he heard it, he saw the kids running out of the house. We couldn't do anything but watch it burn. The firemen were speculating that it started in the chimney, and that's why it was mostly consentrated in the attic, but it moved quickly throughout the house afterward. So sad. (The kid in the red coat is the one who ran out of the house. All he could do was watch his home burn down)

Since we're not used to this sort of thing, it really got to us and our emotions were all over the place. Poor Jordyn couldn't stop thinking about the "what could've beens" and what would now happen to the family that used to live there. Later that night, I started realizing that if it WAS our house- how would we survive this type of thing? I mean, the family was alright, but everything they owned got burned and ruined. Clothes, important documents, food, sentimental items, pictures... everything! It made me think again how we need to be prepared just in case something like this were to happen. (Afterall, the house we're in right now is OLD!) It also made me that much more grateful for my kids, husband, and the things (although they may be few) we do have still.

Here's to being grateful.