Alison Hodgson

Expert on the etiquette of perilous times.

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Eden crawled into bed with me this morning around 3:30. The thunder had awakened her and she was scared. She cuddled next to me and I held her. We prayed together though I was so tired my head hurt. She offered her fear and worry to God and then opened her arms to receive his love. Something I have prayed for years for our family is that our hearts would be so full of the love of God that there would be no room for fear.
The older two have always been good sleepers, but Eden has been the one to come crawling into our bed in the wee hours. The morning of the fire she awoke a little before four. Because of this I was awake when the alarms sounded.
“I’m so worried.” Eden told me the other day.
“What about?” I asked.
“So many things,” she said, “that our house might burn down again! Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes!”
She is aware of all the natural disasters that have occurred lately. We have talked about them and prayed for the people who have lost their homes. She knows the pain of losing her possessions and her sense of safety.
I hate that my eight year old is beset by fear. All I can do is hold her close and walk with her and pray with her one day, one night, one early morning at a time.
Please pray for her, for us.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2011/05/201/

How I Became a Minimalist In One Simple Step and You Can Too!

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Granted, I had some help.
This was exactly where my family stood and watched the fire. I know because the photographer had to walk past us with his tripod to set up some other shots. I hadn’t yet intellectualized that there is a “fire etiquette” since I was in the very early stages of discovering this, but looking back I would give Dave Odette from the Grand Rapids Press a gold star for leaving us alone and limiting our exchange to a look. He was doing his job and we were doing ours.
As I watched my house burn, I thought, “I can take this,” which might smack of hubris and a desperate attempt to get a handle on a situation which was clearly outside of my control. That might be true, but what prompted it was recognition that I felt no pain. Shock was a big part of that, of course and my subconscious instantly shuffled through my history of suffering trying to process the unthinkable thought: my house is burning down.
There was a feeling of embarrassment as if it was a big mess we had made, as if we were at fault. I remember willing the firefighters to get there and thinking we just needed a little help and then Paul and I could get it cleaned up. The firemen (no ladies on this job) arrived within minutes, but time has a way of slowing down when you’re watching your house burn.
We had many crazy thoughts, standing on that path, watching the fire spread from the garage, to the upstairs and outside to the cars and the trees. It occurred to me that not everyone gets to watch her house burn, that it’s a unique experience and that I needed to pay attention, so I did. And a fire is a fire; all of them, from a safe enough distance, are strangely mesmerizing, and the burning of our home was no exception.
What surprised me was the absence of pain, that this was not as painful as the death of my father, our son’s multiple and protracted diagnoses, depression, the loss of my childhood home in the aftermath of a massive embezzlement of our family business and the loss of my childhood itself with the death of Paul’s father to suicide.
I was in shock yes, but I was also clearer than I’ve ever been: “that” (our house and possessions) was stuff and could be replaced, my family, standing beside me, alive and physically unharmed, was irreplaceable. It was well with my soul.
How could I know that the actual burning is just the beginning of the suffering with a house fire?
I starting keeping a written record the night of the fire. Writing is how I think. Until I lay it down, it’s a tangle of thoughts, a confused clutter. Writing is how I examine my life, how I see. The day after the fire I wrote down our escape from the house, part of it anyway. I could only get so far because, in the writing, I realized something that was so elemental, such a picture of my life, all of life really and with it came the acknowledgment that we could have so easily died and I stopped writing. Bam! Shut the book.
I have written here and there, posting a pittance, trying to keep a record, but I have held back. My mind is a large house with an attic stuffed to the rafters and all the closets ready to burst at the slightest turn of a door handle.
There is no way (for me and for now) to tell this linearly. I’m going to open several boxes a week and go through it all. There might be a bit of a mess as I sort through everything, but I’m going to allow myself that.
“The light that was shadowed then
Was seen to be our lives,
Everything about us that love might wish to examine,
Then put away for a certain length of time, until
The whole is to be reviewed, and we turned toward each other.
The way we had come was all we could see
And it crept up on us, embarrassed
That there is so much to tell now, really now.”

John Ashbery “As We Know”



Oh, and I’ll get back to that minimalism, it wasn’t just a joke.

What Cannot Be Shaken May Remain

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You can’t imagine how much work it takes to tear a house down.

I wasn’t there when this particular fire was set, but I know how easy it can be when you have a match and a pile of highly flammable material. Add an accelerant (in this case gasoline) and in no time, you’ve got a blaze a burning.

In the early days we said, “Our house burned down,” but it wasn’t really accurate as a ruins, that had been half of our home, remained. Now we say, “We had a house fire,” when we have to explain although, if we’re able, we try not to say anything at all because it complicates everything.

The truth is someone set fire to our home.

Christopher thought the arsonist should have to walk through the streets naked, but I agree with one of Oprah’s gurus who says that shame doesn’t bring about change.

It was after my seventh call to Consumer’s Energy, that I told Paul we should forget about prisons. Instead, criminals should be forced to run the bureaucratic labyrinths that spring up and stack themselves one on top of the other, which the victims of crime must navigate in order to rebuild their lives.

An arsonist, as a handy example, might think twice before setting his hand to flame if he had to deal with insurance, meet the demands of zoning boards and design a new house, all on a strict timeline. We could throw in some of those fake babies that they give to teenagers in life classes to simulate the demands of parenthood, since we wouldn’t want the criminal actually taking care of our children.

“Do you know I spent ten hours on the phone just with Comcast?” And don’t even get me started on the township supervisor!” I imagine our firebug complaining to another criminal in the call/detention center that could be the prison of the future.

There would need to be something that simulated errands: driving kids everywhere and shopping, to replace all the belongings that burned, as well as the day-to-day supplies and food. And let’s not forget cooking for a family…I might, but we would need to have that be a part of the rehabilitative process.

“I JUST went to Costco! How can we be out of Veggie Straws AGAIN!?! Who spilled coffee on the inventory? I never knew the suffering! OH THE HUMANITY!”

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This whole no internet at home deal is really putting a hitch in my blogging get along. We have been relying upon the kindness of strangers, family and friends and their WiFi which has been fine enough for reading email but not so hot for replying cogently, if at all, and certainly not for blogging.

Overall it is well with us, but I cannot get thee close enough world wide web!
Technically we have phone service, except it doesn’t work. I had to place several calls to schedule a technician and then asked Paul to go down to the “network interface device” to verify that the problem was not our equipment or AT&T’s network. He came back up almost immediately as I was on hold with Verizon trying to get us wireless.
“It takes a screwdriver to open it,” he said
I think you all know that I have embraced this fire-induced clutter free life style as cheerfully as possible, but minimalism has its limits. (Bah dum bum!)
My kingdom for a screwdriver.
I just looked at Paul, shrugged and held the phone at him. He groaned and went to look around. We’ve had many of these shining little marital moments since the fire.
Fortunately he found a screwdriver in the basement and verified that the problem was with our wiring, scheduled a technician who is going to come some time between now and Wednesday. Whoopee thank you.
I was chitchatting with Amber at Verizon who was thrilled to help me get online. I would need a device which, if a signed a 2 year contract, was FREE, with a 1 year contract and some mail-in rebates, was $70 and, in order to go month to month, was $270. I called Peggy, our private adjuster, to get the go ahead, before I raced to the nearest Verizon store and then back in order to get online in the comfort of my rental home.
Alas, it was not to be; she needs to present it to my insurance adjuster to avoid him denying payment in the future which meant I had to drive somewhere to get online to email her the terms that I just outlined above for her to forward to my insurance adjuster who is on vacation until Tuesday.
Everything we do requires permission and documentation and at least 5 phone calls, but the universe seems to prefer 23. I prefer osmosis.
I will be back soonish and be much more cheerful. I don’t want to be that gloomy lady whose house burned down.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2010/09/234/