The Christmas Fire

His house was on fire. The policeman told him to hurry home. As he drove up to the old brick schoolhouse, the roof collapsed forcing balls of fire out of the gaping window openings. He let out a deep, pained scream as he stepped into the chaos of trucks with crackling radio talk, wandering hoses and blinking white lights.  Yellow- helmeted firefighters rushed in every direction.  The night darkness was his only calm.  Someone had robbed his old brick house and burned it down.

For many days he stood in the ruins listening for his children’s laughter or the school children from so many years before. There had been two grade school classrooms a hundred years before he and his wife had turned the building into their home with their three small children.  The day before the fire they had put up the Christmas tree and train set. Only ashes remained.

He thought he had brought the old building back to life; now he felt it had been murdered. He promised the wreckage he would rebuild.   And he did.

It was a simple modern layout wrapping rooms around an octagonal central space reaching 14 feet above the floor.  It was a dramatic wonderful home in which the young family flourished.   The parents loved building it, and both went back to school for training in architecture, eventually opening their own architecture office.  Their son also became an architect. The area around the house gradually filled with orchards, gardens, and ornately designed chicken houses. It was the perfect site for glorious sunsets and sunrises.

The fire was a tragic loss that gave many remarkable gifts.