Her joy fades when neighbor loses home

Last week I read about the wildfires across the country and idly wondered if the one in Colorado was anywhere near my friend Mary’s house. I checked Facebook and was reassured when her latest post detailed a run-in with a would-be computer scammer who had contacted her by phone. She left him whimpering in her dust! I expected no less, as she works for Hewlett Packard and is the most computer savvy person I know.
Mary and I first met eons ago when we both worked as keypunch operators at Borden’s Dairy in Dayton, Ohio. We sat in a window-less basement room and endlessly keyed in codes for milk products to be loaded on trucks the following day. The machines punched holes in cards which were then sorted and eventually translated into a work order for the guys who loaded the trucks.
Then on Saturday she posted a picture of smoke rising over the mountains, with the caption, “Waldo Canyon fire from our backyard. Just getting started. I don’t like this at all!”
I began to worry and pray.
Her next post was, “Under mandatory fire evacuation about ready to depart with a few possessions. No idea where we are going yet.” This was followed by, “Found a hotel that will take pets. We tried a few others, but were already full.”
I started praying harder and checked the news updates incessantly.
Sunday I turned on the computer and she had written, “Yes, we are fine, turns out yesterday media was giving misinformation. We came back and are reorganizing to be ready. It is really a terrible fire. Winds are too unpredictable; they don’t know what it will do. We expect to get an order this afternoon . . . I won’t kid you this fire is really bad. We are back home re-packing and we have several offers to come stay. I thank you so much for all your support and love you dearly. We are fine for now.”
They were still at home on Tuesday and the Waldo Canyon fire had grown to cover almost 5,000 acres. I checked the map to see how close she was to the fire and grew even more concerned.
Mary woke up at 3:30 a.m. with her eyes and throat burning from the smoke. The fire had roared to within three miles of her house. Temperatures hovered around 100 degrees for the third day in a row. They were evacuated for real on Tuesday evening.
Wednesday morning she wrote, “… it looks like a war zone. I will spare you photos. So many fires visible. I feel sick.”
I thanked the Lord that she and her family were safe and continued to pray for all involved.
She spent another long and restless night, resigned to the fact that it will be days or weeks before she and her family are allowed back home to survey the damage.
As of Thursday, it was reported that most of the homes on her side of the street survived including hers. She wrote, “I want to feel joy but it doesn’t seem right.” Her heart was breaking for her neighbors. My heart was breaking for her. The street running perpendicular to hers had only three houses left standing. Her friend Katherine lost her dream home. Local news reported that a second body was found in one of the destroyed houses.
For a fire of this magnitude, it is simply amazing that as of today, Friday, June 29, 2012, only two persons had died and only 347 residences on about 35 streets have been destroyed. It has been said that this is the most destructive fire in Colorado’s history. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.
I thought it was important to show you one of the many people affected by this terrifying event. As I write this, the fire is still raging. There is still a chance that my friend’s house will be sacrificed to the inferno. There is a chance that more lives will be lost, more property destroyed. But for now my friend is safe … and I continue to pray. For fire does not respect life or structures. Fire lives only to destroy.[[In-content Ad]]