Storytelling Exercise

The article written about it was small, but to me there was nothing small about it. On the 18th of May 2010 in the early morning a fire destroyed my grandparents’ house in Toowoomba. On so many levels they were lucky to survive. By chance my grandma chose not to take her sleeping pills that night which would have made her dead asleep the whole night.. For whatever reason it was, it was that decision that saved both my grandparents’ lives. Since she didn’t take the sleeping pills she was up and about at 2:30 in the morning when she heard a popping sound. She left the kitchen to inspect and what she found were flames burning the spare bedroom, the bedroom just across from where grandpa was sleeping. She immediately rushed to call 000 who told her, as anyone could have, to get out of the house straight away. My grandparents aren’t young and mobile they are 88 and 89. Although it may seem a simple task to just get out of the house, when your hearing is impaired, your sight is blurring and your body isn’t anywhere near as strong as it use to be, it is not such a simple task. Grandma rushed to the bedroom to wake grandpa and get out. From the time it took for grandma to call the fire brigade the fire had spread, the flames reaching the roof, smoke filling the house at a rapid pace. Grandpa, foggy and disorientated from being jerked awake from a deep sleep, didn’t know or understand what was going on. Being told that your house, of 35 years, where you children grew up was now on fire could never be an easy thing to hear. Grandma steered both of them to safety, then waited for the firemen to come, all this time watching their house burn down. Watching their possessions, their memories burn and not being able to do anything.

The fire brigade came and put out the fire, but nothing could be saved. 88 years worth of photos, clothes, all of their belongings were now ashes in the house that used to be their home. But nonetheless they were thankful they still had their lives, another 2 minutes and they would have been destroyed along with the house. My grandpa spent two days in the hospital from the smoke inhalation, but they survived. I have only heard the story from them and I feel their pain but I could not have imagined being there and witnessing that. Initially the source of the fire was said to be the electric blanket in the spare bedroom but after 7 hours of searching through the house it was discovered that an electric chord had caused the fire.

After the fire they lived in a hostel in Toowoomba for a couple of months, but it turned our to be hard, so they moved down to Brisbane. I never thought about how hard it would have been for them moving from their home of 35 years, leaving their long time friends to live in another city, where the only people they knew were my family and I. My mum has spent the last year fixing up the house which cost my grandparents $300,000 to repair. Although they do miss living in their home they are now just as happy as before living together in an age care facility. What they went through was traumatic and horrible but they survived and to me that makes them heroes.