Mom brought a cake to the table and set it down. A single unlit birthday candle stood tall and proud in the center of the cake amid chocolate frosting. I clapped my hands with happy anticipation. We were celebrating my nephew David’s first birthday. He was born March 27th, 1960, the year I turned ten. My brother-in-law had enlisted in the army amid the Berlin Crisis, so he and my sister, along with David, had recently moved away to an army base. Even though he wasn’t with us to celebrate his special day, I insisted Mom make a birthday cake for David.
Taking a wooden matchstick from a box, Daddy reached under his chair to drag it across the rough underside to ignite it. Suddenly, with an aggressive roar, flames shot out of the cold air-return grate next to where he was sitting.
Seeing large orange flames coming from inside the wall of my much-loved home, I jumped up from the table and screamed. As a ten-year-old, I figured that everyone was responsible for their own escape from the house. I ran from the kitchen, through the entryway, and out the back door. A few minutes later, my brother Billy found me standing on the sidewalk behind the house, sobbing. He said, “The fire is out. Everything’s okay.”
I returned to our supper table to find Mom had placed a serving of the birthday cake at my place. It was like nothing had happened. I felt confused and as though I needed to run around the block several times to get rid of the residual panic in my system. A few fork loads of frosted cake went a long way towards making me feel better. I hic-upped, “What happened? Why did the house catch fire? It happened so suddenly!”
Life Lines 