The Sound of the Siren

Late one Saturday night eight years ago, my husband, Randy and I returned home from a weekend at Camp Yolijwa. We brought with us a very sleepy crew; Brandon 10 years, Nick 5 years, and Emily just 3 months old. We tucked the boys into bed and carried Emily up to our room. She actually slept in her bassinet beside our bed, instead of in our bed, that night.

I was extremely tired but couldn’t sleep. Ugh! An hour or so after everyone else was sleeping, I heard the neighbors screaming at each other. Although quite annoying, at that time, this was not that odd of an occurrence. I did what every good wife would do, I woke Randy up. I asked him if heard them, and told him I thought something was wrong. He said something like “Yeah, they were drinking too much again. Go back to sleep!” Back to sleep?!?!? I wasn’t sleeping in the first place. For those of you who are wondering, compassion is not one of Randy’s spiritual gifts.

A few minutes later, the screaming got louder and someone started banging on the shared wall between our duplex homes. As I rolled over to wake Randy up, I heard one of those words that no one ever wants to hear in the middle of the night – FIRE! It took about .04 seconds for this to register in my brain. Their house is on fire – that means MY house is on fire. I scooped Emily up and ran down to the boy’s room. I literally drug Nick down the stairs and outside, wearing only his underwear and a sweat shirt. The poor kid will be scarred forever. My neighbor greeted me on the porch. I thrust my new baby into his arms and ran to a get the phone to call 911. I gave the dispatcher my address and explained that we live in a duplex. But she demanded to know the neighbors house number and I couldn't remember if his was number was higher or lower than ours. Hello?!?!? Our houses are connected, if you find mine, you found his. By this time, just look for the smoke billowing out of the house.

Meanwhile, Randy and Brandon are upstairs arguing. Yes, you heard me correctly, arguing. Brandon is a little hard to wake up and not exactly pleasant when he gets woken up. The boy is 10, pick him up and get out of the house. Just a thought.

Eight years later, the siren that alerts the volunteers to come to the fire station, still wakes me up in an instant and leaves me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. At 4:30 this morning, when the siren started, I was instantly awake and believe it or not, so was Brandon. I grabbed my coat and my car keys as he raced to grab his fire gear. As I drove him to the station, trying not to get run over by the ambulance rushing to the scene, I realized that the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach was not because I was remembering that night eight years ago, but because my baby was going out on his first fire call.