Calm down you blood thirsty animals; I’m not talking about firing any of the Chicago coaches… I should though. Eberflus, Getsy, Donovan surely wouldn’t be missed by most. Shit, Frank Reich didn’t even make it through his first year as Carolina coach. Sad thing, we know Donovan won’t be going anywhere, because you know, Jerry… But Ebeflus and Getsy, well, something has got to give, but it probably won’t be until after the season. No, I’m not talking about that today; at least there are folks that have control of that decision. I’m talking about an uncontrollable force…
When I got the phone call from my neighbor during the Bears game on Monday night, about my other neighbor’s house being on fire, I jumped. I was sitting on the couch with my son watching the game. As I moved towards the front door, then, I started to smell it… I looked outside and the fireman were already assembling; I didn’t see the fire though. I saw smoke coming from the back. I ran to the back, thinking maybe it was his garage; nope… the back of his house was on fire. Shit!
I can’t really remember the last time I was scared. I get nervous/upset about things, sure. There’s the “scare” of losing a bet, of getting on a roller coaster, of family dying… sure. But standing on my deck, watching my neighbor’s house go up in flames, being separated by only about 6 feet of gangway… THAT was scary. And you know what? There wasn’t shit I could do about it. Sure, I tried to tell the firemen how to do their job… Over here, over there… the gutter is back on fire, look! Of course the wind was blowing our way… our house was so close to catching on fire. As I realized this, I told my wife to get my son ready. The second that fire touches our house, we’re out of here. At least we would be safe…
The fire melted some of our siding, but thankfully, never touched the house. We have some other minor damages, but nothing like my neighbor, whose house is done. Most importantly though, nobody got hurt; all that other stuff can be replaced… I don’t know; part of me is like, I don’t need any reminders about how precious life is… about how quickly things can change; I’m well aware of it. This was the 3rd fire around our house since we’ve moved in 6 years ago… the factory across the street went up in flames, a garage about 3 houses down, and now, our neighbor’s house. I don’t know how to feel about it all, except extremely thankful that my family and our house is safe.
I’m still kind of numb… but we move forward; what else can we do? We want to control so many aspects of our life, but bottom line, we cannot. There are things that can and will happen that are out of our control; I feel like those things are only going to increase, especially as my son gets older. What can we do about it? Try our best and pray for the rest… I think I should put that on a t-shirt.
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