He Didn't Even Comp the Chicken

When I was 15 my mom burned down our house- on purpose. She rigged up the clothes dryer, which was in the room right next door to my bedroom, so it would explode. I'll never forget that day. My dad was at work but because it was summer break, my mom, my three sisters and I were all home. My mom was acting a little strange, unusually happy/strange. She suggested we all take lunch to my dad and then do a little shopping. First of all, she NEVER took lunch to my dad and almost never took us shopping. So after surprising my dad with fast food, we headed to Kmart. While I was in the dressing room trying on swimsuits I heard an announcement over the P.A. I was asked to meet my mom at customer service right away. Since my mom had been acting so "funny" I thought she was playing a trick on me so I didn't come right away. When I finally saw her face, I knew nothing was going to be funny again for a long time.

The next thing I remember, we were approaching our house and I saw black smoke and bluish/reddish/orangish flames shooting out of the windows. The firefighters were on the roof cutting out a huge hole. By the time the fire was extinguished many people from town were standing in our front yard. Curiously, some folks were walking into MY house, random neighbors and strangers, to personally assess the damages. It felt like my world flipped upside down and someone had posted an Open House sign on our lawn without our permission.

Later that evening, with nothing but the dirty, sooty clothes on our backs, we ended up at my gramma's house. We were all in shock, feeling very overwhelmed, but hungry. At the time, I was working at a local bowling alley that had a kitchen so I called in an order of fried chicken and potatoes and told the boss I might not be in the next day. My gramma drove me to the place to pick up our food. Even though I was a stinky mess, everyone came out to hug me and offer their sympathies. When I was about to leave I grabbed my wallet and a co-worker said, "That'll be $26.50". Unexpectantly, I felt stunned. I paid the bill then got back in the car and said to my gramma, "He didn't even comp the chicken."

A few days passed. The insurance company delivered a very small trailer into our front yard. We would go on to live there for six months while our house was being gutted and then rebuilt. Then donations started showing up on the doorstep. Lots of very generous gifts of toiletries, pillows, blankets, jammies, food, etc. were given to us. But what was also delivered, mostly after dark, with no knock at the door was stuff like this: men's jeans with no zipper in a size 54' waist, a dilapidated, stained-up stroller (my youngest sister was six or seven at the time), gym shoes that had already been downgraded to someones lawn mowing shoes, broken toys. In other words, other people's trash. We then had the additional burden of loading this stuff up and hauling it to the dump. We couldn't just leave it out for the garbage truck to pick up- we didn't want to look ungrateful.

There are so many moments in my life that have passed by unnoticed and unremembered. That summer there were several important memories/lessons burned into my brain forever.

1. The lure of money and new stuff can make a crazy person do super crazy things. I'll never forget wading through the muck of what used to be my bedroom with a clipboard trying to write down everything I had lost- pictures, awards, my stuffed animal collection, audio tapes of the "radio programs" my sisters and I had recorded. My mom instructed me to write down stuff I wanted, even if I hadn't had it in my room, because "that's what the insurance company would want me to do."

2. Whenever possible, "comp the chicken". I try to remember how much of a negative impact that moment had for me. It could have been a memory of love and support, a story I would have repeated to everyone. "Do you know what my boss did, he said our money was no good here tonight. That was so cool!" Instead I remember it with a sting.

3. Give from the very best you have whenever you can. It felt like the donations given to us were a reflection of what people thought of us. No one knew my mom had started the fire. I didn't know it for many, many years. Almost no one knows it even now. Some people gave to us sacrificially. It was hard to be the recipient of charity from anyone, even at 15 years old, but it taught me great lessons about love. Lessons about what to do and what not to do.

My mom is gone now. She died in a car accident eight years ago. Although she did a lot of crazy things (I'm sure some more stories will surface in this blog), I'm amazed at how often her "crazy" taught me big important lessons. Not the method most parents use to "teach their children well", nevertheless there were tons of ah-ha moments in there. If I look closely, I know for sure- the crazy moments in life are the ones I learn from the most.