I stepped out of the shower as if it were any other morning. I was dripping wet and drying myself with a towel when I noticed the message on my phone.
It must have just come through because the screen was illuminated and I had been in the shower for longer than I needed to be.
The screen on my phone said “New Voicemail” and I assumed it was my client calling to tell me they couldn’t make it.
I touched the screen and listened as my mom said “Freddy, Grandma’s house is on fire”...I don’t remember what else was said and although I never deleted the message, it is long since gone.
It was early in the morning, maybe 7am or 8am, and I have no idea what clothes I put on, but I was immediately dressed and in my car. I’m assuming I put on the clothes from the previous day that were lying on the floor of my closet.
At the time I drove a Police issued, unmarked, Chevy Impala, that previously belonged to a Deputy Chief of Police.
I left my driveway and initiated my lights and siren and drove entirely too fast for the weather conditions.
It was 3 days after Christmas and the roads were covered in that typical Indiana winter slush and ice.
It’s hard to say exactly how fast I was driving, but it was definitely more than 100mph. I wasn’t excited though. I was calm and collected and knew exactly what I would do when I arrived.
My grandma lived in a small trailer, that resembled a log cabin, right next to my mom and step dad’s house.
She had Polio when she was a child and as she aged into her 80’s it had come back with a vengeance. She had terrible joint pain and was nearly unable to walk.
Grandma lived in a chair that assisted her with standing. She was in it during her waking hours and in it as she slept because she was no longer able to stand from a prone position in her bed.
As I raced to her house, which was less that 5 miles from my own, I formulated a plan to rescue her from her tiny, burning trailer.
I knew that her chair was in the right hand side of the sliding glass window of her little log cabin. I had a specialized tool that would shatter the window and I knew I could pull her from her chair and out of the burning trailer.
As I drove far too fast on the ice and slush, I thought about this women who meant as much to me as my own mother.
She was the mother I needed when my teenage mom was busy going to college and starting her life over after I had come into the world and changed all of her plans.
My grandmother had grown up during the Dustbowl and the Great Depression. She didn’t see electric lights or motorized vehicles until she was in her late teens and she only loved one man for her entire life.
This woman taught me what it meant to be a man and what it took to be a gentleman.
She showed me how to bake, cook, sew, care for animals, other people, how to drive, and how to be the man a woman would love for her entire life.
She watched black and white musicals with me that displayed Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers gliding across the dance floor.
She sang songs with me that inspired my grandfather to keep fighting as he crossed the Rhine River during World War 2, even though he wouldn’t meet his first born son until he was 4 years old.
She protected me when I made mistakes, she lifted me up when I fell down, and much later in life she would teach my daughter the same things she taught me about life, and love, giving and caring, and being a person all people could respect.
When I close my eyes I can still see her sitting in that chair in her tiny living room. She would always offer me a ridiculously small bottle of Coca-Cola and want my thoughts on whatever Jerry Springer or Regis and Kathy Lee were up to that day.
Sometimes she would look at the miniature device in my hand and marvel at the fact that we could watch, read, or listen to anything that ever happened from the palm of my hand.
This woman had grown up on a farm in southern Indiana where there was no electricity or indoor plumbing. She witnessed the industrial revolution and later the technical revolution and had no more to say about it that than she did of the frequent changing of the birds outside the window of her humble home.
She was the light of my life and her house was on fire. Presumably with her in it.
As I drove those few miles to her home I wasn’t afraid. I knew that I had a plan and that my mom had called so early I’d be there in plenty of time to save the day. After all, I had been so heroic thus far in my career, how could I possibly fail.
As I blew passed the other vehicles on the road that morning that were moving at a snail’s pace on the slush and ice, I kept thinking about everything I would do to rescue the woman who had raised me as my mother raised herself.
Never for a single moment did I think I would fail.
My parents lived at the end of a 1/4 mile long driveway that could not be seen from the main road.
As I made my approach I saw a County Sheriff’s car parked at the end of the driveway. The Sheriff was blocking the drive and I gave zero regard to his presence.
Lights and sirens blaring, I drove around that Sheriff and onto my parents driveway, which was 6 or 8 inches deep with snow.
At the speed I was moving my momentum carried me through that snow as if it wasn’t there, but as I rounded the first corner of that long driveway I could see that I was far too late.
My grandmother’s house was nothing more than a frame. Multiple fire trucks were on scene and working to snuff the flames that were rising from the base of what used to be her home.
I made my way down that endless lane and came to rest feet from the house where my grandma lived.
As I exited my car a friend approached and told me that she hadn’t made it out of the home and that the Firemen had been unable to rescue her.
I stood and watched as the flames engulfed whatever was left of my heart.
Years and years of seeing tragedies unfold before my eyes left me without the ability to express emotion. I knew she was in that burning husk of a home, but I didn’t shed a tear or utter a sob.
Moments later my mom came tearing through the field in her SUV. The Sheriff wouldn’t allow her in the driveway so she simply drove around him and through the fields until she reached my position.
As she scrambled from her car she shrieked, “Did they get her out?” I matter of factly told her that they did not and my mother collapsed into my arms.
I remember all of this quite vividly because I was entirely emotionless. I took my mom into her home and then began making phone calls to my brothers.
My daughter was less than a mile away at a friends house so I called her too to make sure she didn’t drive by and see the remnants of her great-grandmother’s home.
The rest of that day is a blur to me. I know that I picked my daughter up from her friend’s house and brought her home.
I know that my brothers arrived at some point and that eventually the fire was extinguished. The Firemen left at some point and later on my brother and I ended up at a bar.
We nearly got into a fight with another man at the bar that night and at some point my brother drove his car into the scene that was the remains of my grandma’s house.
I wouldn’t fully process that day until more than a year later when I completely broke down in a bar while reminiscing over her with my brother.
I learned more from her than anyone else in my life. She was my protector, my teacher, my inspiration, and my blood.
Today is the anniversary of her death and I write this to her honor.
Wanda June Ray you are loved and missed. No one will ever mark my soul the way that you did.
I love you with all that I am. Freddy.
