by Wally Steele

Created on: August 16, 2009

Gently the snow flakes touched my face, as I watched my home burn down. Forty two years of marriage allowed us to accumulate the treasures of life, only now to watch them destroyed by the fire that now consumed our home. April 24th, two thousand and nine will be a day I will never forget. The home that I had built with my own hands was slowly being consumed by the flames that I could not stop. It took some time for the volunteer fire department to respond to my 911 call. I prayed that they would arrive in time to save my home. Soon it became apparent that even though the fire department has responded, my home would fall to the ravages of the fire.

My wife Pat and I held each other and tears flowed freely from each of us, as we watched our dream home and everything it held fall. The firemen asked us to leave the area and they would let us know when we could see what might be left. As we walked down the driveway, a feeling of true loss overcame us. We sat in our car on the road down from our home and waited for information. Finally a policeman came and said that we would have to wait until the morning to see what would be left. We called our insurance company who told us to secure a hotel room and that they would do whatever was necessary to care for us. A terrible feeling of loss remained with us as we checked into the hotel. We were exhausted and fell into sleep only to wake up in the middle of the night and talk. It was then that I realized that even my wallet had been in the house; I could not even provide proof of who I was. We were grateful that Pat had grabbed her purse as she ran from the home. For the first time in my life I felt that this time it would be just too much to overcome. I had lost my job in March, my home burned in April and at the age of 61 I was not sure that I had the strength to overcome diversity one more time. Finally I was able to gain the strength to sleep again and find what the morning would hold for us.

As we awoke and had breakfast in the hotel the clerk expressed how sorry she was for us. This motivated us to hurry to the land and see what was left of the home. As we drove to our land a feeling of fear preceded what we were sure to find. As we drove up to the house our greatest fear appeared to be true; everything was gone. Although some of the home still stood, when we walked into the remains everything was gone. All the antiques that I had inherited now gone, all the precious items that we had held so special now gone. We had the clothes that we had escaped with, Pats purse and our health. We would start again.

Of course, it is now August, the insurance company has settled with us on the price of the home and we are building again. We check daily on how the builders are coming along and dream of the day we can move in. We are still trying to settle with the insurance company for the contents of the home that were destroyed. This has become quite an ordeal but we have decided to put more into the building of our home than contents this time. We now joke that when we pass from this life that our kids will not have to spend as much time going through what we leave behind because the accumulation of things is just not that important this time around. I will miss those things that had been passed from one generation to another and still to this day I feel a sense of failure for not being able to continue that tradition. But God has blessed us and we realize that we have so much more than things. We have life, we have family, we have friends and soon will have twice the home that we had before.

Learn more about this author, Wally Steele.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.