I’ve thought a lot about how to tell this story, even about why to tell it. And as I tell it, it always seems to unfold in slow motion. Looking back, I was just too young to remember what took place. Yet I do remember, or I have animated the stories my family told me to point I think they are my memories.

But, I don’t think so. It’s all pretty vivid…not the details, but the grand event.

The reason I shouldn’t be able to remember is because I was only four years old.

It was a Sunday morning on the old Hyde place and the family — Mom and Dad, brother Howard, brother Bill and myself — were all asleep on the second floor of our farm house. There were probably only three bedrooms, one for Mom and Dad and one each for my two brothers. I was still young enough to sleep in a small bed at the foot of my folks’ bed.

On this Sunday morning, Mom had gotten up to go downstairs and light the cooking stove, which operated on kerosene — a highly volatile derivative of petroleum. Today, no one would think of burning a kerosene stove inside a home. Just too dangerous and unpredictable. But, it was all my folks had.

After lighting the stove, Mom came back upstairs to lay down for a few more minutes. And then there was an explosion that shook the house.

The kerosene stove had exploded. It threw liquid flames all over the kitchen, starting fires everywhere and quickly engulfing the room.

At that moment, our home was lost and our lives were about to change. We just didn’t know it yet. One of the defining moments of my life was about to take place. It was a memory that would stick with me for the rest of my life. It made me fascinated by and simultaneously scared religious of fire from then on.

We heard the “boom”, Dad jumped from the bed and raced downstairs, and then he turned and yelled that the house was on fire and for everyone to get up and get out. In seconds. my brother Howard grabbed me and I grabbed my stuffed animal. My brother made sure Mom was right behind us, and we proceeded down the stairs.

By the time we got to the foot of the stairs, smoke had filled the living room and we were blind. Dad had positioned himself by the front door and was calling out for us to come to his voice.

Now, that front door was always stuck shut. We never really tried to use it. We used a side entrance to the house through the kitchen. But with the kitchen in flames, that exit wasn’t available to us.

Miraculously, Dad later said, the front door easily opened that morning so that was our escape route. My brother was trying to move across the living room with me in his arms and listening to Dad’s voice and still trying to make sure Mom was right behind us.

And then we fell.

In the smoke and darkness, Howard had stumbled over a footstool in our path and with me in his arms couldn’t catch himself. We both went down. I dropped my stuffed animal — lost forever right then — but my brother never let go of me. Dad kept calling out, Howard recovered his footing and we got to the door, followed by Mom.

We were out, moving to the front lawn.

Dad stayed at the door for several more minutes, calling out for Bill, until the flames moved into the living room and forced him out of the house and to the front lawn where the four of us stood standing in our night clothes yelling Bill’s name.

I’m sure I didn’t appreciate the panic in the voices of the other three as we stood on the lawn with smoke pouring from the first floor windows and flames beginning to lick through the broken glass.

Suddenly, the window in one of the two dormers on the roof of the house opened and Bill climbed through, fully dressed in underwear, socks, jeans, and shirt — but only one shoe. That is what had taken so long for his exit. Bill — more modest than wise — was determined to be fully dressed. And he kept looking for his other shoe until the smoke forced him to get out.

When he couldn’t make it down the stairs he had to exit through the window, slide down the roof, jump to the lawn and join Mom, Dad, Howard and me in our night clothes as we watched all our belongings and our home go up in unforgiving and fast-moving flames. I remember hearing the shotgun, rifle and pistol shells for the guns Dad owned explode as the fire became too hot for them.

Before church was out that Sunday morning for the rest of our neighbors, it was all over for us. In what seemed like an instant, we had nothing!

Some very close friends of my parents, Charlie and Lucille McCord, lived in town and had a small bungalow in back of their home. They offered the place to us on a temporary basis that morning, but it became our home for the next year or so while Dad built a new house on the Old Hyde Place.

Over the years, I’ve come to understand how important this event was in my life. No one ever wants to have all they own — as little as it might be — to go up in flames and smoke. And it took more than a minute for me to fully understand what really happened.

I went to school that Sunday, and the lesson was about resilience. At the age of 50, my parents lost nearly all they had in just a couple of hours.

Nearly all, but not all.

Over the next year, Dad spent every minute when he was not at work rebuilding a home for his family. And neighbors showed up every day they could to help in any way they could. Gifts of clothing, furniture, and household goods came pouring in for weeks — so much that we were continually giving most of it away to others who were now in worse condition than ourselves.

Kindness begat kindness.

A year later, we moved back into a new house. I was five, and I would live there until my junior year in high school.

A couple of years ago, my daughter and I drove back to my hometown and by that house. It has been neglected, but at least then it was still standing.

It deserves better.

What it really deserves is a sign above the front door that reads Resilience Lived Here

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