Fire Note: 1996 from M-C & Lars

 

In 2002 our home burned in a fire. It was a total loss and very little “survived”… using the word “survived” loosely.

This was the first time that our family lost everything.  We had no idea there would be other times over the coming 14 years.

For the past 14+ years I have saved many of the notes and cards that were only slightly singed (in August of 2002) with the plan of scanning them some day and sharing them with the folks who wrote them.

This is a very personal little project, but I thought others might appreciate it too.

This is a color scan of an original note and the burn on the side is the actual way it was burned.

Because the firemen got everything wet in extinguishing the fire the ink bled on many of the notes and cards and letters that did survive.

This is a card from my friends Mary-Catherine and Lars, on August 1, 1996 – a couple of days after my eldest son was born.  I haven’t spoken to Mary-Catherine in more than a decade, but happened to run in to her husband Lars when I did a lead poisoning prevention presentation at Nike HQ Campus a year or so ago. #SmallWorld [They had also moved to Portland, Oregon of all places… even though we both grew up near Boston!]

It’s an interesting exercise going through the things one saves in boxes for years…