nccChicken Soup for the Soul: It's Only Stuff

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It's Only Stuff

On July 18, 1989, I received a frantic call from my sister:

Our parents' home was on fire. Fortunately, I learned, no one

was home -- Mother was at her sister's cabin and Father was " out

and about. " This meant, however, that no one was able to

retrieve irreplaceable family mementos.

During the twenty-mile drive to my parents' house, tears

rolled down my cheeks as I thought about the destruction of the

only tangible evidence of my youth. Then I heard a voice: It's

only stuff, you know. It was not spoken out loud, but it was

clear and distinct, and comforting.

When my mother arrived from her sister's cabin, we

surrounded her and gently led her to the charred remains of her

home. Though she knew she was returning to a disaster, seeing

the remains of her home was still a shock.

Fortunately, the firefighters had arrived in time to save

the room containing many of our photo albums. When mother saw

the albums, she was grateful that she had reacted a few weeks

earlier to an inexplicable urge to move them from one room, now

completely destroyed, to the only room left untouched by the

blaze.

But we had lost many sentimental items, such as our

Christmas decorations. Mother had saved the homemade ornaments

we children had made throughout grade school, and I had loved

showing them to my own children each year.

Among the most treasured possessions were ten Christmas

stockings, one for each of us, handmade by our now deceased

grandmother. Each stocking was among the first gifts she would

give her newest grandchild. Because I was the oldest in my

family and one of the oldest grandchildren, I had often stood

next to her, mesmerized, as she carefully stitched each stocking

by hand. She decorated them with felt shapes of trains, angels

and -- my favorite -- Christmas trees, which were covered with

brightly covered ornaments.

One of my brothers was convinced, against all reason, that

these special remembrances of Gram had survived the fiery blaze.

He therefore sifted through mound after mound of ashes and

burned-out blobs. Finally he found them -- in a box under what

remained of the basement stairwell. In the box was another

treasure, remarkably unscathed: our nativity set. The family

rejoiced at this discovery and said a prayer of gratitude.

None of this, though, was a match for what occurred on

September 15, my parents' wedding anniversary. After church,

they went out to the homesite for a last look at the remains of

their home. By now, it had been bulldozed, and a crew was

coming soon to clear away the last traces of the building.

As my parents approached the site, which was still wet from

a heavy rain the night before, both spotted something white on

the sidewalk. My mother gasped as she bent to pick up the

object. It was the prayer book she had carried down the aisle

thirty-eight years ago, to the day. And it was bone-dry. My

father says an angel placed it there.

The fire had destroyed nearly all of the other material

possessions my parents had ever owned. But as we reflected on

the significance of the items that did survive the fire, we

realized each one was symbolic. The wedding prayer book, for

example, is tangible proof of my parents' spirituality and

religious beliefs, which we, their children, now try to pass on

to our children. And every Christmas, as we hang those ten

stockings, now lightly browned around the edges, we are reminded

of the grandmother who made them. Finally, the photographs help

us all recall our youth and remember the importance of family.

The love and happiness contained within the walls of the

old house have expanded into ten more households. Those good

feelings emerge often, whenever we gather as a clan that now

numbers over fifty.

I can still hear my mother's voice calling me as a

teenager, as I would back out of the driveway with a car full of

my siblings: " Be careful, Honey! " she'd say. " You have my most

precious possessions in that car! "

We still are her most precious possessions. The rest,

after all, is just " stuff. "

By Treacy O'Keefe

from Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul