knee deep in ashes

Last year we were evacuated from our house because of the sudden threat of wildfires raging through our neighborhood.  We didn’t have time to think. At the sound of the firemen’s bullhorn warning us to leave, I grabbed my dog, almost forgot my shoes and roared out of the driveway to escape.    

Three days later we returned and everything was exactly as we left it – dinner preparations still on the kitchen counter, flowers still blooming – all our home intact, quietly untouched.  I was overwhelmed with gratitude for having been spared, but haunted by thoughts of those who were not.  The TV and newspapers were full of visual reminders of the devastating losses around us. It was impossible to just go back to life as usual.

 

So, in the next few days, the opportunities to respond became obvious.  I collected needed supplies and helped deliver them to the affected areas, driving on tiny back roads to avoid the fires that were still burning.  I saw how communities responded and poured their energies into helping each other.  I participated in a training program to learn how to work on a team that would be sent into burn sites to help retrieve what might be left.   

Armed with heavy gloves, a hard hat and a mask, we were assigned to burn sites to help sift through ashes for precious belongings.  Homeowners would describe precious keepsakes in hopeful detail and we would search the debris anxious to find something to ease their losses. The backbreaking effort of pulling metal from the sea of ash was exhausting.  The sound of bulldozers roared in our ears as they cleared slabs of debris that used to be chairs, beds and pictures of family vacations. 

Then came the hidden gifts that invariably grace our efforts to help others.  While we worked, I heard incredible stories of heroic efforts to survive, talked with the people who cared for huge numbers of rescued animals until their owners could find them and watched as tireless volunteers prepared lunch in a church gym for anyone who walked in the door.  Despite the scorched landscape and life changing loss, here was the collective human heart opening itself up to receive and to give.

Then it struck me . . . I was walking in the very midst of the physical destruction that looked and felt for all the world like my own heart when Matt died.  I was standing in the burned out refuse of treasured dreams and cherished memories.  I could smell the power of grief . . . .  and, once again I knew,  there is no other way.  We wade into the ashes; we open our arms for the help that is offered and amazingly, despite the debris all around us, we realize that what is most precious cannot be completely taken away. 

Some blessings lie so deeply in the heart that they are immune to destruction.