Yesterday evening, the house I grew up in burned.
My aunt and her husband, my cousin and her husband, their three children, and their cats and dogs are now homeless. Luckily fate smiled enough to spare their lives and health, though their possessions were all lost. However, tonight they can't go home again.
My mother's parents bought the house in the late 1960's. My parents and I lived there along with my grandparents. My aunt and cousin lived there for a few years too when I was a child. I haven't been there in over four years. I haven't lived in that house for sixteen years. That structure has not been my "home" for almost two decades. Still I feel a loss. I grieve for my family and all they've lost. Things are just things, but some things bear the full weight of memory and time. Photos, heirlooms, even the floors that so many feet have tread. Spaces have a way to record the events that happen within them, and can speak to us if we care to listen.
In some ways I envied my cousin's children, because they were repeating my childhood.
I feel helpless to them a thousand miles away. I can't shelter them. I can't give them clothing or food. I can only offer my prayers and my compassion.
Perhaps by acting within our everyday world, by aiding those around us who need help, we can spread hope and love that it may find others who need it, even a thousand miles away.
http://www.the-daily-record.com/news/article/4759571
My aunt and her husband, my cousin and her husband, their three children, and their cats and dogs are now homeless. Luckily fate smiled enough to spare their lives and health, though their possessions were all lost. However, tonight they can't go home again.
My mother's parents bought the house in the late 1960's. My parents and I lived there along with my grandparents. My aunt and cousin lived there for a few years too when I was a child. I haven't been there in over four years. I haven't lived in that house for sixteen years. That structure has not been my "home" for almost two decades. Still I feel a loss. I grieve for my family and all they've lost. Things are just things, but some things bear the full weight of memory and time. Photos, heirlooms, even the floors that so many feet have tread. Spaces have a way to record the events that happen within them, and can speak to us if we care to listen.
In some ways I envied my cousin's children, because they were repeating my childhood.
I feel helpless to them a thousand miles away. I can't shelter them. I can't give them clothing or food. I can only offer my prayers and my compassion.
Perhaps by acting within our everyday world, by aiding those around us who need help, we can spread hope and love that it may find others who need it, even a thousand miles away.
http://www.the-daily-record.com/news/article/4759571
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