Caboom

Caution. My post today is not light-hearted.

This explosion happened yesterday, just about a mile from my house.

On any other afternoon, I would have been completely oblivious because of the giant hill that separates our subdivisions.

But after taking Maddie to the orthodontist and then her parent-teacher conference, I was driving right towards it. I can't help but contemplate the earlier events of my afternoon, if we hadn't stopped at the book fair, if I hadn't bumped up the appointment with the teacher, I would have missed the whole thing. About 30 seconds more or less and I wouldn't have seen the enormous wall of flames shooting 40-50 feet in the air.

I numbly called 9-1-1, but was little help because I wasn't sure of the address. Not a problem, plenty of calls were coming in.

I briefly pulled in to the subdivision, hoping to find that the explosion occured at a construction site instead of somebody's home. Neighbors were on their front porch in confusion. Debris was falling on my car. I didn't stick around long, I wanted to be long out of the way before the firetrucks started filing in.

I was glued to the news the rest of the evening, hoping that all had survived. Sadly the 24-year-old wife of the two-week-old house and the repair man died.

Worse than me seeing this, Maddie saw it. Isaac didn't clue in until the flames had died down, but both were on the couch with me watching the news coverage. No surprise that Maddie woke me up at 3am, scared that our house was going to blow up. I pretended that I wasn't. Tried to reassure her. We prayed, not just for us but for the families involved. We cuddled. But I have to admit that every little middle-of-the-night house settling noise startled me and every time I heard the heater click on I shuddered.

I need to be up and at it. I need to go through the motions. Big things are happening at work today. I have a sore throat to treat, lunches to make, hair to blow dry, clothes to iron, not to mention I need to convince both kids that they feel good enough and they are safe enough to go to school. It's going to be a long day.

But longer for the families who are each waking up with one less this morning.