Heart Aches and Ashes

My brother Dave and I were outside the door of the church at my daughter's wedding last June. In the middle of our conversation, he said, "Can you smell that smoke?" I paused, sniffed the air, and yes, I could smell smoke but from where? "It's my shoes," Dave sighed. "I guess I'm going to have to claim them as a loss after all. The insurance company had them cleaned, but you just can't get rid of that smell." Ten days before the wedding, Dave's house was nearly destroyed by fire, and 90% of its contents were a total loss. (You may remember that it was Dave who shot the beautiful video of my daughter's wedding.)
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Two weekends ago, I was at Dave's house on the other side of the state for the first time since the fire. It was charred and gutted, but contractors are being to rebuilt from the inside out. It will be several more months before he and his family can move back in, but they're doing fine all things considered.

There is a sort of grieving process involved in surviving a fire and losing all your "things," but it pales to the sorrow of lost life.

A week after seeing my brother's house, most of us heard on the news about another fire in North Carolina. So many of us have been encouraged through the months by our friend Nancy at Daily Blessings. We were all saddened when she told us that her god child, a sophomore at Clemson, was one of the seven students who did not escape that October 28th beach house fire on Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina (north of North Myrtle Beach).
Many of us have been praying for them this week.

Then this morning...
we received a phone call from my daughter,
Emily. She wanted to make sure we knew she and her husband were alright. At that moment, the morning news was showing a fire at their apartment complex. They live in a very nice setting in the dunes just off Lake Michigan. High winds, like these seen at the Grand Haven Peer, made the fire difficult to put out.

The units that were destroyed are a few buildings away from Keith and Em's place. Had they been awake, they could have seen the smoke and orange glow from their balcony, but they did not even hear the sirens in the early morning hours (--kind of scary if you think about it). Fortunately, as this newscast explains, the people in the building were awakened by some residents. Everyone got out. (Tuesday evening news update.) In my brother's case last June, his son woke to smoke and jumped from his bedroom balcony before the fire came through the door. Within minutes, his room and the adjoining bathroom were destroyed.

My heart has been heavy with these thoughts today... and fearful of "what ifs," but I have also been more mindful of our friend Nancy and her close friends and the heartache that began for them ten days ago.

Let's continue to pray for them.
Her name was also Emily.