Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Fire
Kevin is no longer the White Cloud of the fire department. In the four months since he has graduated academy and hopped from station to station, Kevin has been followed by a white cloud. Where he went, fire didn't. Kevin stood idly by while he listened to the stories from academy classmates of their sixth, seventh, even eighth fire. Would Kevin ever get a fire?
I watched the news with special interest this morning, like I do all the mornings after Kevin has been on duty, looking for him, listening to see if any firefighters had been injured during the night. I didn't see any fires on the news this morning. It was all Hurricane this and Hurricane that. When Kevin got home I was bustling about trying to get the garbage ready to go to the curb. Kevin came in grinning and holding his fire coat. "Smell this," he said.
Sure enough, it smelled like fire. I know that smell. My older brother was a volunteer firefighter and that's the way he smelled when he came in to give a kiss goodnight when he got back from a call. I love that smell. Is that sick? I love the smell of someone else's life burning. I love the smell of someone else's loss.
"You had a fire!" A family lost their home and we are celebrating a milestone.
Sick.
Kevin is no longer the White Cloud of the fire department. In the four months since he has graduated academy and hopped from station to station, Kevin has been followed by a white cloud. Where he went, fire didn't. Kevin stood idly by while he listened to the stories from academy classmates of their sixth, seventh, even eighth fire. Would Kevin ever get a fire?
I watched the news with special interest this morning, like I do all the mornings after Kevin has been on duty, looking for him, listening to see if any firefighters had been injured during the night. I didn't see any fires on the news this morning. It was all Hurricane this and Hurricane that. When Kevin got home I was bustling about trying to get the garbage ready to go to the curb. Kevin came in grinning and holding his fire coat. "Smell this," he said.
Sure enough, it smelled like fire. I know that smell. My older brother was a volunteer firefighter and that's the way he smelled when he came in to give a kiss goodnight when he got back from a call. I love that smell. Is that sick? I love the smell of someone else's life burning. I love the smell of someone else's loss.
"You had a fire!" A family lost their home and we are celebrating a milestone.
Sick.
