A terrible
thing happened. Our house burnt down. The house that my children have grown up
in. So did the garden with its trees and
the jungle gym and sand pit – there are some bricks left to show its outline –
and the trampoline, the car port, the washing line, the sheds, the horse’s
paddocks and stables. And Beauty’s house. The grandparent’s houses burnt down
too, with the swimming pool. And the cattle fields and the garage where we kept
the tractor and lawn mowers. It all burnt down. It took about 40 minutes.
The wind
blew so hard that we could not hear ourselves speak. Everyone was running – helter skelter - trying to save what there
was to save. Little Adam ran up and down the avenue of Yellowwood trees, back
and forth, confused and frightened. “Go to the barn!” shouted Charles. “No, get
in the car!” I shouted.
At last I
got them into the car. All three of them, plus Beauty and Danny the terrier.
The children cried. I drove through the smoke, dodging phantom firemen and
livestock, leaving our life behind to burn and Charles to save it. We also left
two cats and Julie the dog. We could not get them. We didn’t know where they
were. It was too late.
That was
Saturday. On Monday, in donated school uniforms, the children packed their
donated red lunchboxes into their donated backpacks and went to school. They
fought over who would sit in front and spoke about how everyone would be nice
to them because their house had burnt down. There are others too that have lost
their homes, I reminded them.
They kissed
me good bye, “Love you Mom,” and jumped out of the car. I sat and watched them
go. “My babies,” I screamed internally, “they’ve lost everything and there they
go brave and stoic through the school gates.” And I wept my first big heaving, gasping, shaking,
sorry for myself cry, praying no one would notice or worse still, come and ask
me: “How are you guys doing? Is there anything we can do for you?”
“Yes,” I
would have loved to reply to the well-wishers, “put my children’s home back
together. Find Anna’s drawings and Adam’s Lego airplane and put them back on
the shelf in their bedrooms please. Take away the mounds of burnt rubble that’s
lying on top of everything so that they can go home this afternoon and lie on
their beds and watch dust fairies in the shafts of golden light from the old
wooden windows that frame the green, green garden where they learnt to climb
trees. Put it all back please, because I can’t bear my children’s pain and
loss.” Instead I would thank them robotically.
I told
myself: I have to hold the fort for them – even though it’s burnt down. I have
to be okay even though I’m not okay. And
the enormity of the task made me heave and shudder and snot all over again
because I knew I wouldn’t be able to fake it.
Monday
passed in mild internal hysteria driven by blind adrenalin. There is a lot to
do when everything is taken away. One o’ clock arrived. I donned my Brave Mommy
demeanor and went to fetch them, preparing myself for a deluge of melt downs
and post-traumatic stress.
“Hi Mom.”
“Hi! How was
your day?”
“Fine thanks
and yours?” chimed Anna and then: “Here.” She handed me a folded piece of
paper.
“What is
it?”
“A letter to
Julie and the cats,” she said. “I just wanted to tell them I was sorry that I
couldn’t save them and I will always love them.”
Her eyes
glazed and she looked at me with her big bruised heart. A lump the size of Ayers
Rock wedged into my throat.
Then she
said, “What’s for lunch?”
“Oh I don’t
know,” I squeaked, “What do you feel like?”
“Noodles.”
My lump dissolved
and I realised that this courageous nine-year-old had just reminded me of the
only thing that would get me through this nightmare: to focus on the present,
the here and now.
And I knew then that if she can do this, so can I.
