With a Wild Cherry Pepsi and a book, I made myself comfortable on my chair in the back yard, planning to enjoy some time outside. My phone rang. It was Dave. When you get a call in the middle of the day from someone you know is at work, you have a bad feeling as you answer.
“Hello?”
“Hey Dad. I was wondering if you could help me, I have a small emergency.”
Aimee had traveled down to Johnson City, TN the day before and was scheduled to drive back home today. She had in fact left. When she turned off the road into a convenience store for a snack, she noticed her car was smoking. Actually on fire! I mean, flames!
My first question was, “Is she OK?” He assured me she was not hurt physically but was shook up, then explained what he was calling about. He was wondering if I could go up to Johnson City and get her. I told him I could and would but that I was five hours away. We decided to ask Debbie (Mary’s sister living in Johnson City) if she could pick her up and take her back to her house and then I would arrange to fly her home the next day. Debbie graciously agreed to our plan. And that was a LOT of grace - Dave thought Aimee was maybe twenty minutes into her trip, turns out she was an hour and twenty minutes in!
Then I called Aimee. She was rattled. I don’t blame her. In fact, I never once told her to calm down. I asked her if she was hurt in any way and assured her we would take care of her and make sure she got back to Debbie’s house and back home, but never once did I suggest she stop being upset. How could I? I’ve never been there.
I’ve had flat tires, blowouts, dead batteries, run out of gas, had a transmission die driving on the interstate, and more, but never, no never…. Wait, let me think about it … nope, never had a car catch on fire! Before this, I never even knew anybody who had their car catch on fire! She was shook up? Uh, yeah!
She told me she called 911. I can only imagine the conversation:
“This is 911. What’s your emergency?”
“My car’s on fire! Can you please send someone before it blows up!!”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at a gas station. Please hurry!!!”
Afterwards I was struck by the contrasts in all this. Where I am it’s a peaceful, calm, lazy, albeit hot, Thursday afternoon. Where she is her car is on fire and there are firefighters putting it out.
Praise the Lord she was not hurt, Debbie was able to bring her back to her house, and we were able to secure a ticket for a flight home the next day. Oh yeah, that weekend they were able to get a new car and it seems she is right on schedule with her plan to move down to Tennessee.
All this reminded me of another day and another fire. On March 30, 2013 I was asleep in the afternoon. I had worked the night before and had to work that night. I was peacefully and soundly sleeping when Tiernan burst into the room, “Grandaddy, wake up! Aunt Erica’s on the phone and her apartment burned down!”
Erica was living and working in South Korea. Somehow a fire started in her apartment while she was away and she lost everything. She was in Korea, we were in Carolina, and there was nothing we could do. Praise the Lord she was safe! That night I wrote a poem about it:
I was awakened today
Bad news from far away
“Wake up” I heard him say
“Erica’s house burned down today.”
And in a scene straight from a dream
There was Erica’s tear stained face
“My place burned up, I’ve lost it all”
That was the reason for the call
The blessing of Skype –
I can hear right away
The curse of being far away -
There’s nothing I can do today
How do you remember everything you’ve lost?
How do you figure up how much it costs?
This is hard, but how can I really know how rough?
I sit surrounded by all of my stuff
God had mercy on my child
And now may He give her grace
And wipe those tears from her face
And fill her heart with His love
I'm trying to figure out how to wrap this up and all I can think of is the preacher we heard one Sunday. He was the special speaker that day. He preached for a while then announced, "Well, I guess I'm done." Well, me too!
No comments:
Post a Comment