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The Things I Saved from the Fire
With bushfires raging just five kilometres from your home, the air filled with smoke making it difficult to breath, and people advising you to leave — what would you save from the fire? Are there treasures you’d risk your life for?
Or, if you had 10 minutes to race around your living room, a cardboard box in hand — what would you grab? Ask yourself: what is irreplaceable?
What bits and pieces you’ve collected over the years would you be devastated to see reduced to ash? Perhaps you’d flee empty handed or, like me, you surprise yourself with what you decided to rescue.
A few years ago, when a friend of mine near Gunning, NSW, was told to evacuate her home, I wrote an article about the things she saved from the fire. Little did I know, I’d soon be in the same position, rushing around my home, grabbing the things that meant something to me.
As fires in the Blue Mountains of NSW came close, we were advised to leave and I did a quick “whip around” in my home.
Luckily, our home was safe after all. Others were not so lucky.
The experience got me thinking, once again, about what’s important to us. What things matter and what things are replaceable. Are we somehow defined by the things that we save?
