The day our oldest daughter’s car started on fire, my husband and I were nowhere near.
She’d come by our home that morning to grab a cup of coffee, greet the pets, and catch her breath before joining the noisy world.
It wasn’t as quiet as usual that day in our little corner. Our cul-de-sac had been heavy with extra vehicles and power tools for months as workers shuffled about doing home-improvement projects.
Inside our own house, a painter painted, and outside, two Xcel Energy contractors sized up our yard to install a gas line for our new furnace.
“Things are sure humming in the cul-de-sac,” I’d remarked to my husband by phone as I drove away for the day. By text earlier, I’d warned our college girl of the abundant activity.
Deeply engaged in my own commitments, I’d missed seeing the video she’d texted about an hour later showing smoke emerging from her car’s interior. I hadn’t noticed immediately, either, my husband’s text: “You thought this morning was busy. You should see our cul-de-sac with the fire trucks.”
Our daughter had called 9-1-1, and my husband had been first to arrive on the scene after the emergency vehicles.
But we’d both been absent when her steering-wheel mechanism began smoldering as she pulled into our driveway, and after turning off the engine, as the flames ignited.
We hadn’t seen her jump out, screaming, “My car is on fire!” nor the Xcel workers rushing over.
Not until talking with them hours later did we discover how one had yelled to the other with the greatest urgency to retrieve the fire extinguisher from the pickup, “Now!”
Only later, after her car had been towed away, and the workers had begun packing their tools, would these details come to light.
“Everything was in place. It was like clockwork,” divulged the burly worker with the tattooed arm, still incredulous. “We just happened to be here at the right time.”
Apparently, they’d been contemplating going on break not long before the sparks began flying.
Had they left, he said, the car likely would’ve become engulfed in flames, along with the house.
Feeling both shocked and relieved, I asked to hug him. As tears trickled at the recognition of all we might have lost, he offered something more. “Someone is obviously watching out for you guys, especially your daughter.”
Since then, I’ve been thinking of that recent day as “The Fire of Love,” for through it, I was reminded, starkly, that in all the moments we’ve prayed for our children, asking God to be with them when we couldn’t, he really and truly was listening.
Happy 20th birthday today, dear daughter. We’re so grateful for your life.
[For the sake of having a repository for my newspaper columns and articles, I reprint them here, with permission, a week after their run date. The preceding ran in The Forum newspaper on Oct. 7, 2017.]
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