Listeners (Cassandra, Raquel, others) / Unknown

It was in 2005, Thanksgiving weekend, and I was with my family in our home in Texas, and most of us were asleep in bed around midnight when someone came into my garage, planted an explosive device, and blew my house up.

but not my daughter, my teenage daughter.

She was upstairs sewing.

The lights went off, and then she saw a flame shoot from our driveway across our U-shaped house to the opposite property.

And she ran down the stairs to wake me and my husband up.

And she said, fire, fire.

She screamed.

I ran out the bedroom door.

I met my daughters at the bottom of the stairs.

We ran toward the front door.

My younger daughter reached over my shoulder to touch the door.

And you know, you don't open a door and feed the fire.

And I was thinking stop, drop, and I didn't even get the word roll out before the door exploded inwards.

it knocked me onto my back my dog jumped over my prone body both of my daughters were now out chasing the dog and my garage door had exploded and it was metal and shards of the door were whizzing towards their heads like saw blades and i thought they're going to be decapitated so jonathan there's more to the story but what are you hearing so far whoa

Saw blades, and I thought, they're going to be decapitated.

And luckily those saw blades went around them, by them, over them, and they were untouched.

And I could barely see anything because the next explosion just about blinded me and it blew up my eardrums.

But I could barely see anything.

someone charging through the neighbor's fences, pulling on his pants.

It was my neighbor, Jeff.

He grabbed my dog, he grabbed my daughter, and he hustled them into his house.

Then I picked myself up, and then I glanced down the street, and I could see through my near-blindness the Christmas lights of red and blue lights coming towards me.

Those were fire trucks.

Three hours later,

40 of my neighbors were standing with my whole family and my dog.

in the street outside my house, watching my house burn to the ground.

And one of the neighbors got out his best scotch and they passed it around.

And somebody else got me some herbal tea.

Somebody else gave me a bathrobe.

So anyway, as we watched the fire, we saw the explosions.

Somebody invited me into the house, our neighbors.

We've all recovered.

We all are okay.

And we're better for it.

Thank you.

In 2014, I had just finished graduate school and I was starting a new job.

The day before my 27th birthday, my sister called to tell me that my dad had been in a car accident.

Sadly, he passed away a few days later.

Fast forward to 2019, I began helping with a grief support group at my church, and I had to tell the story of my dad's passing

with each new group, I started to notice things in the story that changed my perspective on it.

Since my dad had passed, I had looked on that time with regret for not having prioritized time with him because of my new job.

I felt awful that I wasn't able to say a proper goodbye or make time to spend with him in what I

realize now were his last days.

But as I told the story to the grief group, I remembered that I had had a sense of foreboding actually around my 27th birthday.

I had heard stories of celebrities dying specifically at this age, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, and it made me wonder if something might happen to me.

And I realized something did happen.

but it happened to my dad.

Now I look back and I tell a story of my dad taking my place.

Maybe I had been the target, that 27th birthday curse coming for me, but my dad protected me.

I know there's no evidence for this, but knowing my dad, it's not a stretch to believe that he would gladly give his life up

to give us what we needed.

So now I see the ways my dad's love for teaching and learning live on in me, and I try to honor these traits and the gift I feel he's given me.