Earlier this week, a new hair stylist asked me where I lived. When I replied that I lived near 50th and France, she asked, "So, did you hear that big house explosion?"
Everybody within at least six blocks of our house heard the explosion. A bank manager on France Avenue said he was standing in the middle of the branch office when the massive boom shook their windows. He and many others in the area darted for their front doors assuming that it was their own house or office that was about to fall.
Our dear next door neighbor was in her family room with her five year old son. Fire fighters were standing on the street in front of the house. Other neighbors witnessed our house as it senselessly crumbled and burned. How could you erase that image from your mind? How could you move beyond that fear?
We've had a lot to deal with the past few weeks, but I am so grateful that I neither saw nor heard the explosion. Somebody I work with sent me this quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Sending my love and strength to our neighbors as they work to overcome this tragic memory.
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