Happy Thanksgiving, Your House is on Fire

My friend messaged me on Facebook a few moments ago and asked, "How was your thanksgiving?"

I replied with "Well... I spent an hour of it standing in front of a burning house. So... great."

To which she replied with a "WHAT?!"

But luckily, it was not my house. My family spent Thanksgiving over at my grandma's house. It was our first thanksgiving in her new house. She recently sold her old home and got a new one because of my grandpa passing away. She didn't like staying in that big house by herself anymore.

So, apparently my sister was bringing things to the car since we were planning on leaving soon. She and my cousins burst through the front door shouting that there's a bunch of fire trucks and police outside. Naturally, everyone is rushing to the door and pushing each other to get outside and see what's going on.

We all made it outside and started running in the direction of the incident. We arrive at the house, which was only a house away from my grandma's, to find the inside engulfed in flames.

No one really knows the cause of the fire, but it was terrifying to watch. Almost the whole neighborhood was drawn from their warm homes to watch this poor man's house go down in flames. There were about 5 or 6 fire trucks, 2 fire rescue cars, and three police officers. An ambulance arrived after the fire had been extinguished but fortunately no one was hurt.

After we had all gone back inside and had our desert, a few of us went back outside to check up on the status of the house and how the man was doing. He stood in front of his charred house with a look of complete shock and sorrow. I watched as he knelt on the grass in front of two boxes which I figured out were fire boxes. Fire boxes, in case you don't know, are boxes that you keep valuables in such as bonds, social security card copies and birth certificate copies, and things you want to keep safe in case of a robbery, or in this case, a fire. He began searching through, pulling things out and trying to slowly piece his life back together.

It was sort of a wake up call that we should always be thankful for what we have because I put myself in his position, and almost burst into tears. I could feel the pain and suffering he was going through. He was without a home for the night, and who knows if he has family around.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and didn't have to experience what I did this year. Even though it wasn't affecting me directly, I still felt sympathy for the man with the burned down house.
November 29th, 2013 at 01:26am