Rebuilding from the Rubble

A personal essay by Clara Dunlop

Sometimes the greatest tragedies in life turn out to be our greatest blessings.

The phone rings.  “Hello?”
It’s my mission president. “Don’t worry, no one died”
“I’m putting your parents through right now”
I have so many questions. “What happened?”
Gone.
My mom confirms, “Are you sure you want to see that?”
“I just want to understand…”

In a daze, I leave the office that I had quarantined myself in. My companion, the girl with whom I solely co-exist, looks at me as if in pain, knowing she has the obligation to say something. She comes up with “I do not know what happened, but I hope you are okay.” Just this. We aren’t close enough for anything more. When I awoke, my eyes were inflamed. My friend embraces me as my eyes fill with tears yet again. And I say it out loud for the first time.

 “My house burned down.”

The reality that the place my family had been for over 30 years no longer exists punches me in the gut. Our house was nothing special. Just one story, covered in chipped blue paint even though we are exterior house painters. The windows were out dated and often brought the window sales people knocking on our door to inform us that they had not been in style since the 70’s. Our house was not much.

But it was ours.


I was devastated, not so much for the things which were lost, but for the place that facilitated so many of my childhood memories. The place we decorated exactly the same every Christmas, with the twelve days of Christmas with the broken goose and the red table cloths with white crocheted doilies on top. The popcorn ceiling where thumbtacks with pieces of streamers from countless birthday parties hung though we tried to take them down. The living room where the sunken steps served as soccer goals and my sister broke her foot stepping on a lacrosse ball. The tree where we took our mandatory back to school pictures and learned to climb. The place where we played twister on Thanksgiving with cousins. The room where I refused to practice our out-of-tune piano. The house we cleaned to Gloria Estefan. The home where a loving family lived, and laughed, and prayed.

For 16 months I had dreamed of returning home, opening my suitcase to hand out presents and share stories of my recent adventures. I was unable to imagine returning anywhere but my home. But I must.

My home no longer exists.

Two months later, I return “home” to the unfamiliar hotel room where my parents were living. The next day they show me the damage before my childhood home is demolished. I went to witness for myself the destruction of the place where I lived and laughed for over 20 years. I beheld what was left of this once vibrant blue house. It is painted black and the smell of banana chocolate chip muffins is replaced by the clinging stench of smoke. After seeing it for myself, it is demolished. A strong house with walls and a roof I could always rely on is now no more than a heap of wood, it is a pile of pieces that cannot be put back together. I see my old room, untouched and still banana yellow, where all of my belongings had been stored, saved through a miracle. All that touches it un-effected. Everything is different, or at least things will forever be changed. There is only one thing that I know is still the same: God has always known what He was doing in my life, and though it is harder to see now, He still knows what He is doing.

Days before “the fire,” my mom had been talking to my sister about how if her house was on one of those extreme make-over shows, she would change everything. She would get new pots, since she has used the same ones since her wedding 30 years ago. She would replace the 70’s windows and finally get the much needed but unaffordable paint job. She would add in a fireplace that did not make the whole house fill with smoke. But she knew this was all wishful thinking that would never happen.

It is easier to destroy than to build and I have seen that now. The destruction that took an hour has taken almost two years to fix, and it is still a work in progress. But in these two years I have seen more miracles than destruction.  Loving people came together in a charity concert to show their support. People came to sift through the piles of destruction to help categorize for insurance. They fed my parents every day because the hotel they lived in for five months did not have a kitchen. We did not have a house, but we had people who would help us through it all. And insurance took care of the physical and immediate needs. The scrapbooks were pulled out by the fireman, trained to preserve the important things. The picture of Christ untouched on the otherwise scorched mantle. So what did we really lose? The first decoration for the new house my mom bought was a big sign that says “Blessed.” And blessed is truly what we have been.