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IT'S ONLY STUFF

This is a story that touched me very deeply and I would like to share it with you. I hope it touches your hearts too.
On July 18, 1989, I received a frantic phone call from my sister. Our parents' home was on fire. Fortunately, I learned, no one was home...Mother was at her sister's cabin and Father was "out and about". This meant, however, that no one was able to retrieve irreplaceable family mementos.

During the twenty-mile drive to my parents' house, tears rolled down my cheeks as I thought about the destruction of the only tangible evidence of my youth. Then I heard a voice: "It's only stuff, you know." It was not spoken out loud, but it was clear and distinct, and comforting.

When my mother arrived from her sister's cabin, we surrounded her and gently led her to the charred remains of her home. Though she knew she was returning to a disaster, seeing the remains of her home was still a shock.

Fortunately, the firefighters had arrived in time to save the room containing many of our photo albums. When mother saw the albums, she was grateful that she had reacted a few weeks earlier to an inexplicable urge to move them from one room, now completely destroyed, to the only room left untouched by the blaze.

But we had lost many sentimental items, such as our Christmas decorations.
Mother had saved the homemade ornaments we children had made throughout grade school, and I had loved showing them to my own children each year.

Among the most treasured possessions were ten Christmas stockings, one for each of us, handmade by our now-deceased grandmother. Each stocking was among the first gifts she would give her newest grandchild. Because I was the oldest in my family and one of the oldest grandchildren, I had often stood next to her, mesmerized, as she carefully stitched each stocking by hand. She decorated them with felt shapes of trains, angels, and, my favorite, Christmas trees, which were covered with brightly colored ornaments.

One of my brothers was convinced, against all reason, that these special remembrances of Gram had survived the fiery blaze. He therefore sifted through mound after mound of ashes and burned out blobs. Finally he found them...in a box under what remained of the basement stairwell. In the box was another treasure, remarkably unscathed; our nativity set. The family rejoiced at this discovery and said a prayer of gratitude.

None of this, though, was a match for what occurred on September 15, my parents' wedding anniversary. After church, they went out to the homesite for a last look at the remains of their home. By now, it had been bulldozed, and a crew was coming soon to clear away the last traces of the building.

As my parents approached the site, which was still wet from a heavy rain the night before, both spotted something white on the sidewalk. My mother gasped as she bent to pick up the object. It was the prayer book she had carried down the aisle thirty-eight years ago, to the day. And it was bone- dry. My father says an angel placed it there.
 

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