Every month, I write about the everyday life and adventures of our family, and what I’m learning in the midst of those things. Since I am not yet a seasoned parent, all I really have to offer to you as a reader is the transparency of the fumbles and wins and losses of parenthood in my own life. Of course, I always hope those experiences are relatable, and the lessons applicable, but this month’s column is a little different. The story I am about to share with you is not my own, but it is an occurrence that has shaped my life by bearing witness of the wound it left in people I love. So, I want to start out by thanking my husband, Brandon, for giving me the permission to share a very personal and vulnerable part of his life that I am truly honored to liaise. To be a beneficiary of his resilience gives me more courage than I ever had before.
Brandon is/was a Kentucky State Trooper. I say was because he retired last year, but do Troopers ever really “retire?” Something about that career path seems to be ingrained in their soul and woven into their personality for their whole lives. So, while he has hung up the badge, I still consider him a trooper “off duty.”
In the police academy, they teach you first aid and crowd control and how to respond to high-speed pursuits. They teach you how to use weapons, how to respond to crisis situations, and how to interact with the community, but they don’t teach you how to stand firm against the weight of your personal world when it is literally crashing down.
One day Brandon was coming home from work, turned into his driveway and, like something from a horror film, saw his entire home engulfed in flames. Fire. Panic. Fear.
The fire had taken the home of his 3-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son. The walls he was creating a life in for them as a single parent now burning 2x4s. All his training, everything he knew about situation control, useless in the moments he watched his sacred place fall to ashes. The Trooper in him buckled and for minutes that seemed like hours, he was just a helpless man and father watching a nightmare he could have never possibly imagined for himself.
Maybe it’s because that house fire was at the hands of an arsonist… Maybe it’s because he had toddlers… But I get weak in the stomach every single time I imagine his fear and adrenaline heightening as he pulled into his driveway to see his home, his babies’ home, and all their things burning. Every sentimental belonging he ever deemed valuable now gone. This was ground zero.
How someone could ever intentionally shatter someone’s life like that is a conversation for another day. Brandon doesn’t give much attention or headspace to the arsonist. There will always be evil in the world as there always has been. The community of people, of friends and family and fellow Troopers poured into him, restoring the hope in humanity and the realization that there is also goodness in the world, as there always has been.
Shortly after they lost everything, Brandon and the kids moved into the Super 8 hotel located just right outside the city. A short 30-day stay in a two-star hotel with complimentary breakfast and then to a used 32-foot-long camper. Each move extremely difficult and challenging in its own right, but each experience with a lesson of courage and tenacity and resilience and the importance of positive thinking. One could drown in anguish and grief, or one could pull themselves up by the bootstraps and move forward with quiet, patient endurance.
Living quarters in the camper were tight. They tried not to spend much time inside it for the sake of their sanity, but as the holiday season and colder temperatures rolled in, Brandon had to prepare for Christmas, making their “Camper Christmas” as normal as possible. There wasn’t room for a standing tree, so he bought a small 10-inch Charlie Brown Christmas tree and sat it on their folding dining room table – the same place where he wrapped their gifts and placed them for Christmas morning.
Life looks much different now for Brandon and the kids who are now 13 and 14, but the memory of a time that felt so dark and impossible has never left their minds.
That same 10-inch Charlie Brown Christmas tree sits amongst our holiday decor today as it has every year since, serving as a humble reminder that at any given time life can change in the blink of an eye.
What I’ve also come to realize because of that little tree is that everything in this life is temporary. Hard, awful seasons of life may come, and they are temporary. Beautiful, full seasons of life will also come, and at some point, they lose their luster but not forever.
Every day is a gift. Stay humble. Hold on and hold out. Nothing lasts forever.
-by Destini McPherson
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