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It's really been a horrible week and it's not over yet....Started off Sunday when my son Michael called me saying, "Mom, has anyone called you?" Those were the same words he said when my second son died and to say my heart stopped is an understatement. He told me they had put my mother in the hospital the night before (Her stomach was bloated and she was in terrible pain) and while they were admitting her my Dad's shop burned to the ground. This would have been bad under any circumstances but EVERYTHING my father had worked for in his 80 years (Ten tractors, combine, grain truck,his Ford pick-up, two ridding lawn mowers, his fishing boat and fishing equipment, three-wheeler, the children's little battery operated model-t car they all learned to drive, my sons new dirt bike and his son's dirt bike, all his tools, ect..) was in that shed. Well over half a million dollars worth of "stuff" counting the building.
I got around and went over and if ever there has been pain in man's eyes it was in my fathers. When I saw that shop it was all I could do not to cry so I can imagine how he felt! He was hurt and he was angry!!!! He could not understand why it had burned because other than driving his truck in the shop a few hours before and Michael putting their dirt bikes in, no one had been in the shop.
I tried to reason with him. I told him to remember what he always told us four girls...His first question was always, "Is anyone hurt?" If the answer was no he would always say, "Then it doesn't matter, everything else is just "stuff"!" I also told him this could have happened when he was raising us girls and NEEDED this equipment. He agreed with everything I said but you could still tell he was MAD!!!!...If looks could kill I wouldn't be writing!
Then suddenly he got to talking about everything in that building. That was when I almost lost it. He told how he had restored each of the antique tractors that were to be passed down to his grandchildren. How he had paid for the "beams" that held that huge metal shop up by taking a load of hay to Ark. and trading it for the beams. How the kids had all learned to ride the wheel-wheeler, the year it was bought, the year the shop was built, ect.. It was horrible. The whole time Daddy and I were talking, Michael was on his cell phone in another room telling we wanted a full investigation to the cause of the fire.
As I walked out to the building and saw the devastation it was almost more than I could take....There stood the "shells" of everything my father had worked so hard to pay for. And then in the eerie, smoky silence a feeling washed over me of how the people of New Orleans felt when they saw their homes, everything they had worked for gone. Once again I reminded myself, it was only "stuff" and memories my parents had lost, it was HOMES, JOBS a way of life the people of New Orleans lost.
We now know what caused the fire (I'm not going to say just yet) and in time this will be taken care of. My mother is terribly ill and has been transferred to a hospital in Kansas City. They had planned to do surgery tomorrow and now they aren't sure. For some reason they aren't sure what is wrong with her. If you have time today, could you please say a little prayer for my parents. They have been through a lot for people their age (80 and 77) and not knowing what is going to happen to my mother, the worst could be yet to come. Thanks and Blessings, Sher |
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