A Reflection On the Lubbock Fire Next Door
I'm sure most of Lubbock has heard about the two-alarm fire that happened at the Boulder Creek Apartments Monday (October 3rd, 2022). What you may not know is that these apartments are directly next to the radio station.
We were never in any peril whatsoever here at the station, but there was a disconcerting amount of smoke that billowed up to our third-story windows. The stench of that smoke in that parking lot was overwhelming and I had to tuck my face into my shirt to get to my car. Driving home required sluicing through the the stream of water that was poured onto the structure to get the fire out. Once I got home, I had to spray my hair full of dry shampoo to get the melted plastic smell out of it.
I woke up to some discouraging news this morning. I have my points of pride, and something I consider myself good at came back, in a quantitative sense at least, as Very Not Good. My identity is a little shook today.
However, today is a day for me to focus on extreme gratitude. I was able to wash the stench of someone else's tragedy out of my hair. There are people who lost their clothes, furniture, photos, heirlooms and who knows what else in a fire that was not their fault. I'm so very sad for them.
I know what it's like to have a ton of your stuff stolen, broken and ruined through no fault of your own. But I have never lost everything. I can't even imagine what that must feel like.
Life can be joyous, and it can be disappointing. In the end, we only have each other. I hope we can pause for a moment and decide to be kind today, because the person next to us could have lost everything yesterday.