Irrational Fear

Since I was about seven years old, I have had an irrational fear of fire. To clarify, I am not afraid of a warm, cozy fire in a fireplace or a controlled, crackling campfire, but for as long as I can remember, I have always been afraid that my house was going to burn down in a fire. I don’t honestly know where my fear originated. I suspect it was from an elementary school presentation given by “Smokey the Bear,” but I don’t know for sure. When I was in the fifth grade, my fear was exacerbated when a house in our neighborhood where I had once played with the kids actually did burn to the ground while the family of four was shopping at Meijer. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the fire that started in their dishwasher, but for a few nights after that house fire, I slept on the floor directly underneath my bedroom window so that I could escape quickly.

Even before that neighborhood house fire, for a portion of my childhood, from about age seven to eleven, each night before bed, I collected and stashed my most prized possessions in a laundry basket that I kept underneath my bedroom window so that in case of a fire, I could just grab my things and jump out the window. My parents knew about my laundry basket of goodies. I often made a big deal about not being able to find this item or that item before going to bed, and they participated in the search so that I would just go to bed already. While I don’t have a specific recollection of any conversations with them about my fear, I’m sure they attempted to dissuade me and allay my fears about perishing in a fire, but to their credit, they let me deal with my fear in my own way, and eventually I grew out of it… sort of.

I’ve long since stopped stashing my things in a laundry basket. But, around the time when I finally realized that most tangible items, with a few exceptions, can be replaced, I got married. And the fear came back worse than before, because now the "thing" that mattered most to me couldn't be kept in a laundry basket. Over the last few years, since the births of my two children, the fear has become even more intense.

Stories about house fires always make me cry huge crocodile tears. Like this one about the mom of a family of six who was the only survivor of a house fire. Her agonizing tale of trying to coax her fifteen year old daughter to jump from a bedroom window still makes me tear up. Then today, there was this story of an eight year old boy who perished in a house fire. For awhile, the news was reporting that he was “missing” as if there was a chance that he made it out of the house with his mom and sister, but had wandered off in the confusion.

Given my irrational fear that someday, my house will burn to the ground, I know I should not read these tragic news stories. But, I have to read them. I have to read the accounts of the survivors who maybe, just maybe can offer me a clue as to what I should do in such a situation. If I file these nuggets of survival in my brain somewhere, maybe, God forbid, I can draw upon them to get my own family safely out of a burning house. I also need to read about those who don't survive, so I can anaylze what they did wrong, why they couldn't get out in time, and hopefully learn from those mistakes to get my family to safety.