Dreams Amidst the Fire

January 11, 1998 is a day of infamy for me, so normally I find myself somewhat reflective on this anniversary. Today I find myself doubly so after a strange dream last night. I don't usually remember my dreams, but this one stuck out as the setting was a strange blend of the Lindenwood and Covenant campuses on the first day of class for the Spring term at Covenant. Some of my favorite Lindenwood professors were running about getting to the classes they were teaching, and some of my friends were standing in lines registering for classes and doing other errands.

I was set on heading to my Covenant mailbox to see if I had gotten any of last semester's papers back and ran into a particularly notable friend, L. In real life, unfortunately, I unwittingly managed to drive a wedge in my friendship with L, and have not talked to this friend since right after the end of last semester, though I attempted to do what little I could to rectify things once in a letter. At any rate, in my dream all of this had taken place, but it turned out the letter had had the hoped for consequence and my friend had forgiven me, much to the Dream-Me's surprise. We had a very nice, normal conversation as we walked to check our respective mailboxes. It was all very delightful, but I woke up in the midst of it and quickly realized none of that had really happened.

This haunts me, because I am a fixer. Something broken is a challenge to me that I feel obligated to find a fix for. In this case I realized the wisest course of action may not have been to even send the letter, but having done that already, it is certainly wisest to say nothing more. Being powerless to fix something, though, always leaves me pondering the potential ways I can fix it — a trait I got from my grandpa. And that leads me to why this day is infamous to me.

On Sunday, January 11, 1998, my family was getting ready for church at 7:10 or so in the morning when my uncle called. He lived with my grandparents at the time. We had just been over to their house the night before for a sort of “final party of the Christmas season” before all of the decorations and such came down; it would be the last really normal time I'd ever spend with them. My uncle was panicked on the phone. Their house was on fire and they had narrowly escaped it. As it would turn out, a small crimp in the aluminum wiring of the house had ignited a fire in the attic which had smoldered until it finally swept down into the garage and then the main part of the house. Most things on the main floor of the house were destroyed, and my grandparents would not have survived had my uncle not awoken — the ceiling in their bedroom collapsed, likely just moments after they escaped.

As my family drove from St. Charles over across I-70 to Maryland Heights, our hearts sunk. Their was a gigantic black plume of smoke in the air, and we knew where it was coming from. We arrived while the fire was still in full swing, cruelly eating away at the always previously joyful house. My grandparents were antique dealers and the fire had taken quite well to their treasures. But we never would have guessed what else it took. My grandmother would eventually die of dementia in 2005, but really showed no sign of its onset until that Sunday. The fire was too much for her and she started on a rapid slide into the clouds of Alzheimer's.

My grandpa, as it would turn out, had a terminal cancer that was probably already in full swing, and which caused confusion as well, and while we did not know the cause, this too was apparent immediately after the fire. But it was made worse, I believe, because my grandpa was a fixer — he had infinite patience when something required it and the determination to match — nothing was beyond fixing if he put his mind to it. But my grandma was. He could do nothing to pull her back out of the fog she entered so suddenly. He denied anything was the matter with her to us when we tried to probe in concern, but after he died, we found contact information for the Alzheimer's Association amidst his things. It seems despite his own bout of irrationality he was very aware of what was the matter with my grandma, but refused to admit it to anyone else to protect her. Until his own disease made it impossible for him to do so, he poured all of himself into the project of keeping her afloat. From an outside perspective of years gone by, it is really something beautiful to behold his determination driven by love, but in the immediate ashes of the fire, all I saw was that my grandparents, who had been an absolutely huge part of my life had survived but been all but taken from me anyway.

I wish on no one the horror of digging through the rubble of a fire, doubly so in January. The smell of the fire sticks to you for long after you leave the site with a scent that is surely straight out of the Inferno. I can still conjure up the smell just thinking about it. If the smell is not enough of a reminder, the ash is nearly permanent on anything it lands on. The pain of seeing the house in ruins is, at least temporarily, overcome by the far worse prospect of sorting through those ruins. It lingers.

And so it was, really, for my grandparents. They did not live so much as linger after that day. They were two of the most amazing people I have ever known, and two I could do little better in choosing those to emulate. Those two amazing, loving, wonderful, unique people in a cloud of smoke were snatched away.

January 11, ten years ago. Time's winged chariot moves so quickly.