Our “go bags” are still near the front door—two weeks after we watched maps and news updates indicating that our neighborhood was on the line of the “alert” zone. We knew there was only a slim chance that we’d have to evacuate, but given the fire stories we’ve witnessed the past few years, we knew it was wise to prepare. We filled our cars with gas, looked at maps, talked about evacuation routes. We rehearsed our plan out loud. Pat will grab the two drawers of necessary papers—insurance papers, birth certificates, passports; I will wrestle our cat Luna into her carrier; Mai will fill bags with canned food. We could be gone in 30 minutes.
Because Pat’s engineer mind always goes to “What if?” our evacuation pile has sleeping bags, a tent, and a water filter. He imagined that we might need to camp out of our car for a while. I reminded everyone to “load up your Kindles” and “bring extra masks.” I could see us on cots in the nearby fairground buildings, having lots of time to fill. I downloaded several British murder mystery stories.
When Pat was given this heirloom, it had been in a barn for years. He refinished to this bit of beauty.
After we surveyed our stack, we walked through the house looking at the stuff we’ve collected in our forty-one years of marriage. There’s a shocking amount of stuff. But there were surprisingly few items that we paused near and said, “I’d hate to lose this.” The 150+ year-old organ that one of Pat’s ancestors floated up the Missouri to a lonely homestead in White Sulfur Springs, Montana. The rocking chair that I bought and finished when I was 19. (What 19-year-old decides that she has to have a rocking chair?) A small elegant hutch from Belgium that I bought from an old friend. Of course, the most valuable items were family photos, but I also treasure pillowcases and tablecloths embroidered by my mother and grandmother. Sometimes, I caress these items and call to mind the calloused and crooked hands that produced these heirlooms in the evening hours after they’d already worked long days. Their strength will forever amaze me.
Art work by Anne Godsey. Hate to lose that.
Mai, who likes to be prepared, nodded and said, “Good, we have a plan,” and went back to her room to binge watch Friends.
It did feel good to have a plan, and I knew that losing everything—if, God forbid, it came to that—would be hard, but not devastating. I looked at Pat, at Mai, at that feral cat I plucked out of the median of a busy street and knew that if we had to escape with only those things that we’d be lucky indeed.
