In October 2003 my wife and I woke up Sunday morning to an eerie orange glow in our bedroom. We were newlyweds living in San Diego, CA. As we looked out the window, we saw what looked like snow- this is San Diego mind you. In reality it was ash, the orange glow was fire. We were less than a mile from the largest wildfire ever recorded in California History (burned over 800,000 acres). Fueled by the Santa Ana winds, the fire had grown through the night and surprised many sleeping residents by morning. During the course of this fire 15 people would lose their lives and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage would occur (over 2000 homes were lost).
Our apartment was right next to the San Diego Chargers Football Stadium which became an evacuation shelter. As an aside, the Monday Night Football game was moved to Arizona and work and school were cancelled the entire week. Needless to say, it was a big deal and a very scary time. It took years for the community to recover.
But there is a part of this story that is inspirational; the emergence of a hero. In a community north of where we were living a young boy was evacuated from his home to the nearby elementary school, his school. The school was also being used as a command post for the firefighting efforts. The young man had already lost his home in the fire but, as the news would report, he asked his mom if he could make sandwiches for the firefighters working around the clock. It became a great story of a young man more concerned about others and helping where he could than about his own safety, security and personal loss.
I think there is a lot that we can learn from this young man. I shared this story because we all go through ups and downs in life….right? Sometimes it just feels like our house is on fire and there is a chance we could lose it all. Do you have people in your life willing to stand up and make a difference, to be a part of the solution? Are you that type of person? We should all strive to be that support group for each other.
You can make a difference in someone else’s life.