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Carr
"Fire-nado"
Fire,
Redding, California, USA - Friday July 27, 2018
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Enlightenment
won't save your property from a
wildfire.
None of us should
expect
a special dispensation or preferential treatment from one. A
wildfire
doesn't discriminate. It doesn't have favorites. It's an
equal-opportunity destroyer. The best you can do during it's
relentless onslaught, is
pray
for
rain
and / or a shift in the wind (neither of which may come in
time),
then wait. Oh, and you can
take responsibility
for
creating
the
context
in which its events unfold around you. That can make a huge
difference. No, more than that: it's in situations like these, it's
the only thing that does. Really.
Having evacuated from
my home
ahead of a rapidly approaching
wildfire,
I
lived
for a week not
knowing
if I'd have
a house
(and possessions) when I
got
back. When I returned, they were all intact (it's an
anticipation
no one should have to
live
through). That said, my
particular
encounter
was passé compared to
friends
of mine who lost four buildings (their
home,
another
house,
an office, and another building) in a
wildfire.
On an inconvenience scale of 1-10, that must surely rank a 14. What
they did
next
is inspiring.
They made an inventory of everything they had to do to
get
their
(new)
situation managed. Then they
simply
went through that list, and handled every item on it (they didn't
waste
time
either). Both of them lead full
lives
bearing enormous
responsibilities.
What's
extraordinary
was if you were one of the many
people
dependent on them delivering their
responsibilities,
you wouldn't have noticed anything mishandled or handled
differently or delivered
late.
Unless you
knew
or
asked,
you wouldn't have
known
about the huge additional load they were also bearing in the wake
of the
wildfire.
I offered my assistance. I wanted to assist them. I
would have allocated many days to them to help out. Let's
face
it: they must have had an enormous amount of suddenly
additional
work
to do. They appreciated my offer. I could tell it
moved
them. Then they graciously declined it. They did it all by
themselves, barely raising a sweat, not
getting
behind on any of their other
responsibilities
either. Oh, and they didn't
complain.
Not once. Not one peep.
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