Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Mixed thoughts after the mini-vacation

We went to the Cape for a few days, hence no posts. (Like I'm a real daily blogger - right?!?) We stopped at A's parents on the way there, spent the night. I hate the bed we sleep in there. There is only a mattress over the springs. Get a box spring please! Next time, we'll sleep on the futon in the other guest room - a lot more comfortable! So - this was the Boom Doggie's first trip to A's parents' home. He was very excited. He ran around a lot and gave lots of kisses. G - A's dad - seemed to like having a dog on a temporary basis and volunteered for the poop and piddle outings. I started my weekend of prodigious (did I spell it right) eating the next morning. We had muffins, scones and eggs for breakfast. Mmmmmm.

On to the Cape. Weather was beautiful when we got there, but began to look like rain, so we got mom's stuff in off the line and made her bed. We like to rack up the brownie points! Hey - we are getting a virtually free vacation, so we need to help out around the house. The dog loves my mom. He enjoys being up there. He was very cute one afternoon when he managed to sneak out behind my mother. He was bounding around the yard. I could just see him thinking "I'm free, I'm free!"

Everything was all good until late Saturday afternoon. A comes in to me, listening to a message on his phone and says "Was I supposed to work this morning?" I told him I did not know and asked if they were looking for him to have been in the firehouse. Unfortunately, that was not the case. He had gotten a call telling him that there was a big fire at the Deutsche Bank Building and that word was one firefighter was dead and another one just barely hanging on. He was worried that someone was covering his shift and may be dead or nearly dead. He was also worried about all of the other guys in his firehouse and friends who were assigned to houses that would be responding. He was eventually able to get information telling him which company the dead firefighters were assigned to - I guess that's when he found out that the second one had passed. His main concern then was to check in on the guys in his house and to find out if his friend Chris, who was assigned to the firehouse of the brothers who passed, was okay. As the night wore on and into the next day, we got information. It was hard being so far away, because it wasn't top news to the Boston stations. We learned early Sunday that one of the men was a guy A had been friendly with in probie school. We also learned that it was A's company, including the guy covering his shift, that found the two men. They told him how bad it had been, the men who were low on air, the horrendous conditions, the fear that they weren't going home ever again.

I wonder what I would have done if we had not gone to the Cape for a few days, but had been at home. A would have been working. How would I have handled the news of the fire? Would I have been freaking out? Would I have even known? Sometimes I don't turn on the scanner when he's at work. I'm wondering if I should keep it off or on. Better to know or not know? We talked some about what would happen - who comes to notify me. A few years back, when he was in a different company, he had set it up that one of his friends would notify me. We decided this weekend that he'll set it up for their company Chaplain, who is a Priest in the Town I work for, to notify me. I'll tell you- if you ever ask what my greatest fear is - it's seeing a department car pull up in front of my house. I stressed to A that we need to start going to church again. What if something happened to him? Where would I bury him from? We need to belong somewhere. We need a faith-home. I know that the Chaplain would take care of us, but I want to belong somewhere. So I guess next weekend, we'll begin trying out some of the parishes in our area. I know I shouldn't "shop" for a church, but I want a place where we'll feel comfortable, where we'll be at home. If anything ever happens to A, I'm going to need it.

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