I'll tell you why, again, just in case you were on vacation or something, and missed it on facebook. I will add a few more details that maybe (unless your my mom, who also reads) you havevn't heard yet.
Sunday morning, as I'm simultaneously frosting and filling cupcakes, drying my hair, dressing myself, and the kid, my mom calls to tell me there is a fire near my cousins house. At this point in the story, let me fill in a gap. My family lives on a mile section that my Nanny's family bought many, many years ago when they first came to Oklahoma. However my cousin and his wife bought a house on the next mile section down.
My mom was a little freaked out because it's barely a mile away and the wind was blowing toward my family's land at a steady 30 MPH, with gusts over 40. That's nothing here in Oklahoma, if you've ever heard the song, but it definitely sucks when it's pushing a fire toward the two homes you grew up in. Two being, my grandparents house and my parents house.
We were sitting at my grandpa's house for Father's Day dinner, fully aware of the fire as we were met at the bottom of the dirt road with fire trucks and smoke. I actually could see the smoke the entire drive out. Before you yell at me for taking pictures while driving, I assure you, I was stopped on the edge of the road. My phone does not take pictures while moving well.
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| What I saw from about 4 miles away, the smoke is blowing right toward my destination. |
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| What I saw when I pulled up in my grandpa's yard. |
Anyway, we managed to eat our lunch in peace, but before we could really take a moment to enjoy it, my dad who had been on fire watch all day came in freaked out wanting my mom to go pack some things up at their house, just in case. By this time, I was near the point of an anxiety attack and could not enjoy my cupcakes. But, the point, my dad and other men in the family drove down closer to the fire to look at what was happening before packing and my female relatives gathered up pictures from my grandpa's house, just in case. We spent about an hour looking through them and reminiscing, which we should definitely do again because I was way to stressed to enjoy the moment. My dad came in again, saying that the fire was about to cross the main road between the two sections, and we really needed to go pack up at my parents, as the only thing between that road and their house was open fields of grass and wheat, and my grandpa's house. :\
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| What my Aunt saw while we were packing at my mom's. |
We quickly drove the quarter mile to my mom's and ran in. I went straight to my parents room where my mom and sister were grabbing clothes from the closet. From there we started grabbing pictures and we tried to grab the TV, but we couldn't so I ran to my car, kid in tow and tore up the road toward my sister's house.
We found out later that my grandpa was refusing to leave. He took his dog to my cousin's house a few miles away, but he needed to be there and watch what happened. He went back and sat in his driveway, in the awful smoke all evening. My aunts and uncles were there, and eventually, after dropping the goat off at my sisters, he went back with my husband to watch the fire. Because my mom is her mother's daughter, her allergies forced her to stay at my sister's. If you knew my Nanny, you could just imagine her yelling about the smoke, and I assure you my grandpa would not have been there watching. She would not have had that.
When I got to my sister's, I found my sister, her kids, and husband there, along with her best friend, and my mom. We sat there for a few minutes and in walked my mom's best friend, who had gotten a call from my mom while at walmart and came straight to be at my mom's side to wait with us. I'm sure she knows how much my mom needed that, but I don't think I would have known it if she hadn't come.
So there we sat in limbo for hours, getting picture updates from my aunt, text updates from my aunt, and praying. That was the worst part, the not knowing.
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| The fire across the main road, taken from my family's side of the fence. |
My mom couldn't take the waiting any longer, so she and I went to take my dad's medication to him at my grandpa's. When we pulled into my grandpa's driveway we saw that the fire was flaring up again, from the somewhat contained state it had been in. While we were there, a transformer even blew up at a house across the road. We quickly had to leave because the smoke was unbearable for me, and I don't have the worst allergies ever like my mom.
After that, I went home. I couldn't just sit at my sister's anymore. It wasn't her house, it was the just sitting. I needed to either be doing something or not even be thinking about it at all. I went home and took a bath, tried to destress, no luck. After that I just kept my phone as close as I could, updating everyone and trying to get updates from my parents. I was up until after 2 waiting for any kind of news, and eventually crashed. I woke up intermittently and was still texting my mom trying to find out what was happening. When my mom said about 6 that my dad had gone to bed at 4, I went to sleep and stayed that way. I went about my day as normal as possible until I got another call from my mom saying that the fire had rekindled at both ends of the road and my dad was going to find someone to put it out.
Monday's fire ended up burning my Uncle's old empty house that had been protected the day before. While that is really sad, it is a least a blessing that it wasn't a home that someone was living in, or even my Uncle's other house that he had built when I was growing up which was being used for storage by my cousin.
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| Where my Uncle's house used to be. |
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