Of course we didn’t. It was an accident. And if we could see around corners and into the future we would change some things (we think). Having just gone through loss of house and home, is a sharp reminder of the sorrow of loss that people everywhere face every day.
Everyone faces the loss of people they love, at one time or another. In many cases whole communities are affected such as in Lac-Megantic in July 2013; or the 200 people from Red Sucker Lake
First Nation in our own province, and now thousands in Saskatchewan; and don’t you feel for the average family in Greece?
Help from outside your situation is like a warm towel to someone pulled from near drowning in icy water. For us, the offer of residences, be they camper trailers, bedrooms down the road or in several cases homes that were vacated, brings a measure of comfort at the time of the loss of one’s home.
That loss makes you feel, well, homeless. Adrift. Particularly when you are in borrowed shoes and coats. Invisible chords of identity stretch from your heart to your nearest loved ones, to say – I do belong – somewhere, sort of.
In our case, a nearby community that was most familiar to us, over the years, beckoned and we became residents in a home that had provided shelter to a string of people who found themselves otherwise homeless. We fled to that place – a manse no longer needed as a pastor’s residence.
Roads were awash with rain as the sky opened up in a deluge. You could hardly drive. A deluge that helped to quench the blaze, but seemed to add to the terror of that late day fire.
Hamiota is a haven while we make sense of what is left and do many loads of laundry and scrub smokey items and find lost things, as hastily packed tubs, bags and boxes are investigated.
But we know that all around us, behind closed doors and casual greetings, people are in one crisis or another. For some it is their health, or financial strain, or their children struggling with something. Tension at work, broken relationships, everyone has trouble.
But the willingness to help someone else is a gracious kindness that is infectious and I believe – you reap what you sow. Goodness will come back to help you.
The old song says, “God sees the little sparrow fall, it meets his tender view....” I hope He’s looking after our hummingbirds now that we cannot. The kindness and help - you don’t see that coming. It is surprising.
