I love the sound of rain on a metal roof. Those first drops pinging on the roof, like scattered pebbles, cause a flutter of excitement, followed by relief at the thunderous crescendo that even a moderate amount of rain can make on steel.
Late one January night I woke to that sound of ‘ping, ping, ping’ above my head and waited in anticipation for the sound of rain. Despite my sleepy state, somehow, unconsciously that ping, ping, ping, seemed to go on a bit too long. Then consciously I wondered that it sounded strangely loud, like flung rocks, and only in certain spots. I got up and aimlessly wandered out where I was confronted by a wall of flames outside our full-length family room window. A woman was at the window shouting “get out of your house” It wasn’t rain on the roof it was embers. The thick hedge which sheltered our house from our busy road had been set on fire.
Adrenalin kicked in, and I was running around rounding up sleepy kids from bedrooms in various parts of the house. In my running around it was soon obvious that the house itself wasn’t on fire, and that I had time to gather any precious things. That is when I froze. In that moment I couldn’t seem to think of a single thing I wanted to take. I grabbed my purse and the photo box, only because the purse caught my eye and I remembered that people are supposed to take their photos. As we sat on the curb while the firemen attended to the flames, and miraculously saved our house, a neighbour coming to see the spectacle commented, “Ah ha, you got the photos!”
As a chaplain, I have heard similar stories from others. People who had enough time to take a few things from their homes, finding themselves unable to think of anything they wanted to take. They recall that moment of indecision, a moment of calmness at the centre of a storm, and deciding on just one photograph among many. It is said that trials and hardship can be a blessing because they reveal what is truly important to us. I guess it comes from our primal instincts to flee from danger, the unconscious overwhelming the conscious, forcing us to drop everything and run. Later, in a place of safety, the conscious brain will dominate again, and we grieve those lost things. We question "why didn't I take them all when I had plenty of time?"
I wonder that what we grieve is not so much the thing, the photo, or the house, but the memories that go with them. Memories of people and relationships no longer physically present, or quite the same, but continuing to be real and tangible in the photographs, things and places we associate with them.
For years a little china pot of no value or much practical use sat gathering dust on my laundry windowsill. One day I accidentally dropped and broke it as I opened the window, and looking at the broken pieces I was suddenly brought to tears. I had bought that pot on a shopping trip with my great aunt when I was about eleven. On the odd occasion it would catch my eye I would happily recall the memory of that trip. Recalling every word of our conversation, remembering her holding it. Her, an adult, thinking that I had made a good purchase.
My tears were not for a lost pot ingloriously relegated to the laundry. It was a moment of re-ignited grief, fresh and raw, for a beloved person and a place, and also a person that I once was, that is forever gone. I imagine the immensity of joy I might have experienced in discovering that little pot as all that remained of a lifetime of gathered things in the ashes of a ruined home.
As our summer of fires went on and on, and people risked their lives to defend homes and places and things. Evacuees anxiously waited for their moment to return - to their place - filled with memories of joy and sorrow, people and things of their past. A personal place that is also part of a community place.
As we weep for lost places, and hear of people wanting to return to their land in tents and caravans, I hear the lament of the Jewish people weeping by the waters of Babylon. Oh “how shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?” (Ps 137).
For better or worse, we just want to be home. We are who we are in our place as much as in our body. In the ruins we collectively grieve for people, places and times forever gone, as we reconcile a part of our own being that is forever changed. And yet, in our time of trial what has been revealed as most important to many is that above all they are the place - homes can be rebuilt. In this I find renewed hope for humanity.
Family 'treasures'. Inheritances, gifts, children's art, old wedding bouquet.