Ever since the Haitian Earthquake on January 12, I have felt a heavy, almost unreasonable concern for the people there. It's an urgent concern that doesn't let me go. I wonder if the aching I experience is because I was once in a similar situation. I lost everything I owned in an instant. I experienced a house fire, when I was in my mid-twenties. For several weeks, I was homeless.
Now, in no way was my fire experience as bad as what someone in Haiti is experiencing today. But I know what it is to be one moment living a routine life with a job, a humble place to live, and the rhythms of daily life. And the next moment, to be standing in the street with an overwhelming feeling of disbelief-- realizing that what you are wearing and carrying in your purse are the only things on earth you now own.
It was 1988 and I was working at my desk at a Boston newspaper where I was a young reporter. It was my first job out of college and I made a whopping $14,000 a year. Slightly after 5:00 p.m., I was getting ready to leave work and play in a casual softball league, like I did every Thursday evening. The phone rang--it was after hours, but I picked it up thinking it might be one of my softball buddies calling to cancel or change plans. Instead, it was a neighbor lady from the working-class area of Boston where I lived. Rents were cheaper there and my college roommate and I could afford a two-bedroom apartment in a small building, with our place being right above a street-level travel agency.
My neighbor lady asked to speak to someone else--anyone else she said. That was weird. So I handed the phone to a colleague who promptly turned white in the face, "She says your house is on fire."
"No it isn't." I said flatly. That was just incomprehensible.
It took a few seconds to convince me that this was real. I rushed out of the office, hailed a cab and headed for my neighborhood. "Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic..." I told myself as the cab maneuvered through rush-hour traffic. "Maybe it's a mistake, or not as bad as it sounds." I started to wonder about my roommate's location. Could Karen have been trapped in the fire? I whispered a prayer for her. Could I have left my curling iron or something plugged in: could I have accidentally started a fire?
The cab had to stop at the police barricades about two blocks from my building. As soon as I stepped out of the cab, I could see what was left: a big, black smoking skeleton--the remains of what used to be my apartment building. The building next door was about half gone too, and there seemed to be lots of police and firefighters for blocks up and down the street.
I ran up to the first fireman I saw," That's my house!" I said urgently. "My roommate might have been in there..." My friend Karen had an unusual schedule of graduate classes and I was never sure when she was home. "No, no one was hurt, Miss--we checked," The fireman said. "The fire started in between the two buildings and burned straight up the sides. Then it burned like crazy on the roofs. The sparks must have blown to other buildings because we've put out about four other small fires in other buildings around here." It was August, the wind was hot and dry in our faces--I could see how that strong wind carried embers that sparked other fires.
What followed was several hours of numbed chaos. This was the era before cell phones, so trying to find my roommate, my friends, or anybody to tell was difficult to impossible. My overwhelming emotion was disbelief. I felt surreal -- like I was watching a movie about someone else's loss. It's called shock.
"Do you have a place to stay tonight?" someone asked. "No, I guess not." I said. "Wow. I did, up until like an hour ago." I took inventory of what I owned: the pants, blouse, and shoes I was wearing. The contents of my purse. One set of sneakers and a pair of shorts I had planned to wear to softball. That was it.
A carelessly discarded cigarette that someone probably side-armed into the space between two buildings had sparked the fire. Nobody was hurt, but when the firemen took me inside the shell of the building, there was nothing left to salvage. Truly, I couldn't even find the remains of my bed or dresser. Everything was black soot and ashes.
I stayed with a friend that night, and for the next few weeks I stayed with various friends. (Today it's called "couch surfing." That term makes it sound like a lot more fun than it actually is.) Eventually, I was able to get a new apartment and slowly start buying the necessities of daily life--clothes, dishes, furniture.
The Haitian people today have it a lot worse than I did. Although I lost my apartment, I didn't lose my city. There were other apartments in other buildings around me I could rent. There were police and firefighters to respond to my emergency. In Port-au-Prince, the people did not have the luxury of finding other housing. I had these magical things called credit cards that meant I never went hungry or thirsty. I had friends who helped and sheltered me. The Haitian people had friends who were in the same or worse circumstances as themselves. They had rubble, devastation, injury and death all around them.
I know how hard it was for me to realize I had no home and nothing. It was something that took at least a year for me to fully process and something I still think about often, over 20 years later. It was a lesson: everything material can go away in an eye-blink. I don't know how I would endure months sleeping in an improvised tent, with rain and wind blowing in from all sides. I was a single woman at the time of my fire, how would I cope with caring for small children on wet, muddy ground surrounded by ruins? Could I survive in a tent camp -- the way over a million Haitian people have?
Wow, this is heavier than I intended. Strong memories. I am grateful to you for hanging in there with me. If you can, please donate any amount to Heartline Ministries to help build homes for these homeless people. People who remind me of me--being homeless.
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