The shop, the shop, the shop is on FIRE! How I lost everything to fire…3X (the charm) Part One-The House

If there is one sight you are not likely to forget, it is the awesome and terrible sight of a structure in flames. Especially if that structure is yours. And most especially if it contains nearly everything of material value you have. 

I have found that the universe is constantly giving you signs throughout life. At times whatever it’s trying to tell you is important enough that the signs are rather hard to ignore…Rafiki whacking Simba on the head comes to mind. 

And then there are those times where rather hard becomes rather impossible.  The first impossible to ignore sign in my life occurred in the fall of 2008. We had just spent the summer house-sitting for a friend in Florida while my husband helped his Uncle get a bee and wasp removal service off the ground. It was the year of what they called “the disappearing disease” for honeybees and since beekeeping had been our main source of income in the summer-and we’d lost ninety percent of our bees due to this mysterious happenstance-a change in scenery was perfect for keeping our spirits up.  

Now we also had (and still have) a thriving winter business in NY, (grapevines…that story is coming) along with a house we owned outright, so actually moving to Florida? Not really in the cards. Yet from the moment we landed there I felt as if that’s exactly what we should be doing. A feeling that would’ve made perfect sense if it were winter at the time, but this was summer. And while I’m no fan of frost bite, I’m even less enthusiastic about heat stroke. Still, the feeling persisted. So when Uncle Frank proposed a partnership I leaped aboard and yanked my husband on deck. 

There was one teensy problem-money. Housesitting ended with the summer and the fledgling business was not lucrative enough to afford us a residence with all of its accompanying bills. At this point we were visiting with family in Port Charlotte and when they learned of the dilemma they graciously offered to share their home with us while we worked on increasing the business. For my husband this was not an easy decision, it felt too much like charity which he was unaccustomed to taking.  

It wasn’t long before he began talking about going home where we could discuss relocating once the winter business wound down in April. But I knew in my gut that if we made that choice? The likelihood of returning would drop as steadily as the temperature. Yet his logic was difficult to argue-go back to our rent-free home, save money through the winter, help his uncle by phone, and by the time spring came we’d be in position to move. It seemed I had no choice but to give in, (I’ve sense learned there is always choices) so we planned to spend one more week with family before heading north. 

Three days later we received a hysterical phone call from my eighteen year old step son. 

So our first impossible to ignore sign? Our cozy paid off home engulfed in flames.  I learned the meaning of surreal that day. The house we’d lived in for the past eight years had literally gone up in smoke as we sat on lawn chairs thirteen hundred miles away. I still remember my husband gazing at me with an odd look on his face. “No one was hurt,” he said, and his tone was of one shoulder lifting in a shrug. My answering half smile was my shoulder lifting in return.  

“Guess we’re moving to Florida,” he said next. And then we laughed. It started as a chuckle and became full on guffaws until we were gasping for air. When the hilarity died down we cracked open a couple of beers and settled back into the lawn chairs.  

“The shop is still standing,” he remarked sometime later. “That’s something.”   

Don’t miss part two of this story….