In the Event of a Fire

I've been in a fire. I was just ten years old - and here comes the hysterectomy theme again. The family had moved up to Edinburgh from the north of England in August 1964 (ok, now you have figured out how old I am, sigh), and in November, my mother had a hysterectomy. To help her recuperate, my father took us all up to a hotel in a small place called Blair Atholl, in the foothills of the Highlands over the New Year. It was cold and snowy. We sledded and played in the snow. On the night of January 1, 1965, the hotel burned to the ground. The chef had left a smoldering cigarette end in his pocket. My father and another guest (it was a small family hotel), unsure of whether or not the chef was still in his room when the fire started, broke the door down to get him out if necessary. He wasn't there. The onrush of air was enough to feed the fire into a raging blaze. I remember standing outside the hotel, a thick coat over my striped pajamas, watching brilliant orange flames soaring and flickering against the velvet Scottish night. It is a memory of beauty that I have carried with me ever since.

The chef had his life's savings in cash in his room.
He lost it all.

Beth and Erin have both written about what to take in the event of a fire and your loved ones are safe. I remember thinking for hours about a real conundrum when I was little. The problem stayed with me for years. I am one of four children of an intact marriage. Five people other than me. In the event of a fire, who would I save first? It bothered me enormously.

Recently, I downsized from a three-bedroom house, garage, and back yard to a one-bedroom condo, no garage and no back yard. Before that, I was in a slightly bigger house, and before that, I was in a MUCH bigger house, with a pool and storage space and, well, you get my drift. Divorce will do that to you. Over the past eleven years, I have downsized considerably, paring, paring, paring, until all I have left of the boys' childhoods is one box. One box, a set of photo albums, and photos on the walls. I'm getting emotional just thinking about it. But really what I have learned in all this downsizing and paring and wholesale throwing-out-of-stuff is just what Erin said - it is just stuff. I have my memories, and I have my boys (ok, guys, sorry, young men). And I have my dog. I would save some family memory stuff from my grandmother's time, (a ring, a ration card, a photo of my grandfather's plane in World War 1) and I would grab some baby pictures of the boys. And my flash drive, because it has all the reports I have written in the last three years at work, and when I re-do them (I have to re-do the evaluations every three years) I can just lift a lot of background stuff from what I have already done. Ever practical. Oh, and I have some very old copies of the Times of London, some dating back to 1868. I would grab those too.

All right, altogether too much grabbing.

Pictures of my sons as kids. Period. And my back copies of The Sun. And...

Never mind.