Perspectives
Life will always throw you curve balls to make you quickly change things. It is bound to happen at some point in your life. If you are thinking to yourself, "Life hasn't thrown me any curve balls.", then consider yourself very lucky. Because when it does, it typically puts certain things into perspective. An incident today certainly did that for me.
At about 8:30 this morning, I was sitting at work when I received the message that there was a fire at my Grandma's House, that everybody is okay, but the place is basically completely gone. Here are some links to the stories about it: CBS2 Chicago and the Chicago Sun Times. It took me almost 90 minutes to get over the initial shock. I do not think I did much work for the first 15 minutes of those 90 minutes. During that 90 minutes, I did do work, but I was not completely focused like I typically am when working. The whole situation hit me pretty hard. Not just because my family was involved, that was obviously a factor and what could have happened, but because it was completely unexpected. The shock was not just the loss of the house, but the loss of the intangible things.
The fact that everything is lost is heartbreaking, but most of it can be replaced. The clothes, toys, computers, TVs, appliances, and the other things of that nature can all be replaced. However, as I sat and thought about it there are certain things that were lost that cannot be replaced. Most notably, the pictures. You might be saying, "but they are only pictures". And yes, while true, many of the pictures were of my Grandpa, Aunt, and Uncle all of whom have already passed on. Those are irreplaceable. We do have other pictures, but that is besides the point.
A bit about the house, it was built in the early 1960's, it as a ranch house with a basement. It was where my Mom, Aunt, and two Uncles were raised. The house had not changed much from when I remember it as a kid. I had lived there on two separate occasions, the first when I was between four to five and the age of seven. The second time was between 2007 and 2009. I have some distinct memories of the place. It is where I first got glasses, where I had gotten chicken pox, where I got a stuffed Rudolph the Reindeer for Christmas, where we played Track and Field on the Nintendo, where I went back to after scratching my arm in first grade and had to be picked up by my Grandpa, and where we spent many Christmases. The place holds a lot of memories and, thankfully, those cannot be taken away from me.
When big events occur, life is never the same. Life is certainly designed to keep us on our toes, and it has become rather adept at doing so. Sometimes I just wish it wouldn't be so brutal when it does inject changes.