“Thank God, we got out in
time!” said Allan, to the golden lab retrievers licking his face, as he held
them close. He was on the verge of tears. “We’re homeless, again.”
Allan stood up and
watched flames spread rapidly through his old cabin.
“I always suspected this place
might be a firetrap.” He felt helpless, knowing there was nothing he could do
other than watch it burn to the ground. “No matter how many times I have to
rebuild, I will start over,” he said with grim determination. “Even though this
is so devastating, it gets easier. I learn to live with less. I have
almost nothing again, just my dogs, my truck and my tools.”
Allan, a builder, had purchased
a cabin in the mountains shortly after losing his first home to a flood
that ravaged the entire valley where he lived. Home after home had been washed
away when torrents of water from the mountains devastated the area. The new
house he had built beside the river had been one of the last to go.
“I had hoped that we would be
safer here.”
The flames, fanned by
repeated gusts of wind, had crept higher and higher, finally devouring the
entire cabin. Only the fireplace and chimney were still standing after the
roof caved in. Bright red embers continued to smolder casting eerie shadows in
the dark night.
Allan wiped the tears from his
eyes and the soot from his face.
“Was this was a chimney fire?”
Allan asked himself. “Thank you, God, for keeping my dogs safe,” he said, as he
hugged his golden lab retrievers again. They had awakened him. “Thank you for
waking me up!”
He surveyed a stack of
logs beside the driveway. “I am so glad that I cut down those huge
fir trees, last fall.”
He walked over to them.
“What next?” he wondered, as he
gazed at his panel truck parked at the far end of the driveway. “It’s a
good thing I keep all of my tools in there now. I learned that lesson the hard
way last time. I’ll just rebuild my cabin, bigger and better than the old one,”
said Allan to his dogs. “It’ll be new beginnings for us all.”
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