All You Need Is Family
August 17th, 2004 is a day that I will never forget. It started off like any other day. I can still hear the voice of my mother waking me up early in the morning “Emma! Natalie called. She needs you to babysit Tara and Kennedy tonight!” I knew immediately what that meant. It was going to be a late night for me! Babysitting Tara and Kennedy was a regular weekend occurrence for me. Growing up, almost every weekend I could remember since Grade 6 consisted of babysitting these two girls until the early morning, and here I was going into Grade 11 and still babysitting them on the weekends.
I rolled out of bed that morning, walked down the stairs, grabbed some breakfast and was out the door to spend the summer day in the sun. This day felt no different then any other day. I went to the pool for a swim with my friends, went for a bike ride and enjoyed the sun. I came home around five o clock and sat down to eat supper with my mother and father, not knowing where my brother or sister were. This wasn’t a big deal to me though, because I am eight and nine years younger than my brother and sister and so I was used to eating suppers alone with my mother and father.
I headed to Tara and Kennedy’s that night around nine. They live down a long lane right across the road from me and, even though I didn’t have my license yet, my father let me drive the truck down because he knew Natalie and Chad, their parents, would have had too much to drink to drive me home later that night. He also knew that there was no way I was going to walk up the lane, late at night, and in the dark. When I arrived, Natalie told me they would be home around two o’clock in the morning, I said, “Have a fun night!” and they were off. The girls and I spent some time playing games and watching a movie before I put them to bed. I remember falling asleep to a television show on their couch, and waking up when the adults finally arrived home around four thirty in the morning. I got up off the couch, said that it was okay if they paid me later, and headed home.
When I arrived home that night, it was just before four forty five in the morning. Instead of opening the garage door and parking the truck inside, I parked the truck outside of the garage, but just beside it. That night I also chose to walk around the garage and into my house through the porch door. When I got inside, I walked to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and headed up the stairs to my room. The house was silent, as my mother and father were sleeping downstairs, and my sister was sleeping upstairs in the room beside me. I have always had a tendency to watch a little bit of television before heading to bed, and it was no different this night. Although it was late, I watched a bit of a late night show, turned the television off around five fifteen AM, and fell asleep quickly.
“FIRE, FIRE, EMMA! TAUNYA! GET OUT! THERE’S A FIRE!” screamed my mother as she ran up the stairs towards our rooms. I came to from my sleep and bolted out of my bed. Growing up, they always ask you, “What’s the one thing you’d grab when running out of a burning house?” Believe me, you do not have time to think about this. I didn’t even care what I was wearing, and jumped out of bed in a pair of underwear and a t-shirt, with no bra on.
I opened my bedroom door to the smell of smoke and my sister standing at the top of the stairs waiting for me. We quickly ran down the stairs, chasing my mother. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I looked right into the kitchen and saw how close the fire was to me. My sister, mother, father and I all got out of the house through the front door that was never used. In that moment, the pounding in my heart, the smell of the smoke, and the crackling sound of wood burning all came together. This is a feeling I will never forget.
My family gathered on the front lawn of my house and waited for the firemen to come. As my mother and father sat on the front lawn, my sister and I took off to our neighbor’s house to wake them and tell them what happened. Rose and Phil have lived beside us for as long as I can remember, and we knew them well. We opened their front door and ran to their bedroom to wake them up. “Rose, Phil! Wake up! it’s Emma and Taun, we’ve had a house fire!” I yelled, while running towards their bedroom. Before I even made it, the door flung open and Rose ran out in her nightgown, and Phillip in his boxers.
“Oh Emma, are you serious? Is everyone all right? Where are your mother and father?” questioned Rose in a concerned voice. So many questions for me to answer. “Mom and dad are fine. They’re over at the house. Will you guys get dressed and come over with Taun and me? And do you mind throwing me a pair of pants I can put on?” I answered back.
All four of us ran back to my house through the trail that connected our yards. When we got back, we could hear the sirens coming as we sat along my mother and father and watched our house quickly burn. To me, it seemed like forever. First was the garage, and then the fire took over the kitchen, living room and the upstairs rooms, which was occupied with everything I owned. My sister had lived out of our house at the time and most of her possessions were not there but, as for me, everything I had ever called mine was in my bedroom. I watched it burn slowly, and there was nothing I could do. Trophies, movies, pictures, posters, stuffed animals I had had since a little girl, everything I owned was gone. As I sat on the front lawn and watched my house burn something hit me. I came to a realization that will affect me for as long as I live. I had my family. I looked around to see my sister, my mother and father, my brother, my dog, my cousins. What I had at that moment was family.
We searched for reasons why and how this had happened to us, reasons that would never be answered. All we knew was that the fire had started in the garage. I believed in that moment that everything happens for a reason. The week of my house fire my cousin had recently kicked his girlfriend out and moved in with my uncle. After hearing about our house fire, he offered his two storied, three-bedroom house to us for as long as we needed it. I didn’t park in the garage that night because I did not want to wait for the door to open. The only reason we woke up to the fire and got out of the house quickly enough is because of a man who couldn’t sleep that night and decided to go for a drive at five o’clock in the morning. He saw the smoke coming from my house and broke down our front door to save us. Everything ties together in the end. I could have easily gone into the garage that night and possibly been able to stop what was about to happen. That man could have had a peaceful sleep that night, and not have been awake to drive by and see the fire. In the end, everything happens for a reason.
August 17th, 2004 was a day that changed my life forever, in more than one way. Family means more to me now than it did before, and possessions are merely possessions. In the end, all you need is family.
