It's every family's nightmare.
The smell of smoke, the crackling of trees and the whoosh of fire as it goes about the business of destroying lives and property.You have to make a quick exit. What do you save? The three P's are givens: people, pets and pictures. In reading the accounts of the victims in California, there was little rationale behind their priorities. One dragged a mattress and his surfboard out of a flaming house. Another grabbed photos and a fax machine. Years ago, I read where a fire victim grabbed a Frank Sinatra album.
There isn't a person reading these stories who does not search his or her own mind to mentally list the top five things worth saving after the three P's.
Homes are museums of our lives. They're visible proof that we were here on this planet. We got married, had children, lived, worked, played and had hobbies. We won awards, commmunicated and conducted business. We prayed to someone or something, read books and made friends. All of these are reflected in our homes.
They're just "things" . . . yet they trigger moments we want to remember, stories of people long gone, special events in our lives. Some are objects we just like to look at. When they are no longer there, we are naked.
Good friends of ours lost their home a few years ago from a group of kids playing with matches. In 15 minutes, the house was gone, taking their history with it. It was as if they had never been. They moved to an efficiency apartment and began again.
When their house was rebuilt, we anguished over what to get them for a housewarming present. They needed everything. Finally, we came up with a picture that the friend had taken on a vacation to San Diego. He had given it to a charity to be auctioned off, and we bought it. We gave the picture back to him because it was a part of him that had been preserved.
A Time magazine story reported that Lois Aldrin, wife of Gemini and Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, evacuated their Emerald Bay home at 2 p.m. She grabbed her billfold and a box from Neiman Marcus. In it were miniature flags, first-day stamp covers, letters, and a few items stuffed in envelopes that Buzz took to the moon.
Who is to say the surfboard and the Frank Sinatra album weren't as meaningful to someone else's lives?