Braving the Flame

When I was around seven years old, I watched my father run into a burning building. He saw the smoke rising, and without waiting for the alarms, ran inside. Before this time, I knew my father’s job. I had been to the fire station countless times, faithfully attended each Firefighter’s Memorial Sunday and marched with him in all the parades. But that afternoon, sitting in his truck beside my brother, watching our father run into a building actively on fire, the knowledge made its way home to the very ground of my heart.

I was, as they call it, a sensitive child. My parents had to shield me from the evening news because I would stay awake perseverating on the things that were happening around the globe. This particular formative moment came in the midst of other trauma, so I suppose you could say, the soil was already fertile for fear.

Throughout my childhood I dreamt of darkness devouring my dad, taking him away from me. I was haunted by the portion of A.W. Smokey’s, Firefighter’s Prayer that was on the wall in my childhood home:

To me, that possibility seemed inevitable. I would count the days until my father had to be back at the station, listening closely to the scanners in our home.

Needless to say, I have never really liked fire. For a long time, fire only meant one thing: impending loss.

Even a candle carried a hint of warning. Fear has a way of flattening things into only one shape, allowing them to have only the life it wants. I didn’t like to be near campfires and the smoke of them, and constantly had my eyes peeled for fire hazards.

Today, my father is 70 years old and more likely to be found walking his boxer-girl in the sunshine, but tell that to my little self and I don’t know that she would have believed it. Something has changed for me over the years as I have learned to sit with the things I am afraid of.

I went through a writing immersion earlier this year called Ink & Flame, which caused me to look deeply at all aspects of fire and light. It is true that fire destroys. I am reminded of that each time I walk over the crest of the hill and see the blackened remains of my neighbor’s home. I have collected clothes and supplies for students who lost their homes in the span of an afternoon. It isn’t simply an imagined danger.

But fire, like most things, is multi-faceted. It is the way that I begin my ritual in the morning: coffee and a candle (or five). I look forward to summer evenings where we have a fire pit and roast hot dogs. I find myself lingering long into the burn, watching the glow of the embers after the flame has subsided. There is something about it that feels sacred, creating space for things to rise or burn away.

For years, I thought that bravery simply meant doing the next thing without overthinking it, acting on instinct. But what my father did in that building wasn’t because he didn’t think. He calculated the costs and decided it was worth running in. I am no firefighter (my brother is, ironically), but I am learning to calculate my own risks both personally and professionally.

There are risks in quieting my voice during an evaluation meeting when no one seems to be expressing the key point. Staying silent can leave a child without what they need to thrive. Sometimes I don’t make friends for myself in those moments but, like my father, I decide that there is something worth risking.

I always assumed my father possessed something I did not, that uncrackable bravery. I wondered if when faced with fear, I would always remain staring through the windshield of that truck. But, I am grown now, and I see the tender parts of the man I didn’t always see.

I see the things that made him so good at his job, and that attention seems familiar.

Recently my father said to me that if he was ever in a street fight, he’d want me by his side. Yes, it made me laugh, but it also made me think. As much as I look like him, perhaps it is the inside that was born in the same fire.