Late Night Phone Call

Last night, at about 11, I got a phone call from my uncle Mark. I had been trying to go to sleep for over an hour and just couldn't manage to get down when my cell rang. I admit that at first when I get these late night calls I expect someone to have died. It's just how it usually goes in our family.

It wasn't a death, so that was great news. It was, however, a fire. The business that my grandpa started nearly 60 years ago and that my uncle Jeff had taken to a new level for the last 20 years was on fire. It had been closed. No one was hurt. But the fire was damaging.I'd have to say that as far as damage to personal property goes, fire is like the cardiac arrest of them. You don't see it coming. You don't get to say goodbye. You can only just celebrate what you had and hope that you can get it going again.

But on a personal level, the family business had been a special place for me. It was special to all of us in the family in one way or another for various reasons, but since I'm the one with a blog, I'll give you my reasons.

Besides the fact that if I wanted to see my grandfather as a child, I could always hang out at the "shop," as we all called it. Besides the fact that we had more than one Christmas there as a big family or that my grandparents threw my sixth birthday party there when I parents were called away. Besides all that, there is the fact that the shop saved me.

After my mom died I was lost. Keep in mind I was only 21, so I had the normal amount of "what am I going to do with my life?" lostness going on as well. But as normally social and outgoing I was, after my mom died I had quickly turned into someone with social anxiety disorder. I didn't like to see or speak to anyone. After months of this, my therapist told me that I should get a job, but to make things easier I should get a job similar to one that I had before. So with my fresh college degree, I headed to the mall to get a retail job. Thirty minutes, a panic attack and an incident of me puking into a potted plant later and I was on the phone with my uncle Jeff.

All I said was that I needed to find a job like one I had before and Jeff told me to come in the next morning at 8 a.m. to start. I got to work in a loving, family environment that forced me to talk with customers and get over my social anxiety. For a year, I got to hang out, heal and then move on in better shape than I was. I firmly believe that had it not been for that year, I'd have not been able to move away and be where I'm at today, which includes the loving arms of Chef.

But that's just my story. The shop was a landmark in the community and all day people have been sharing their stories on the newspaper article on the web. According to my uncles, others in the community are stopping to help them clean up. Some of whom they don't even know.

It just goes to show the impact that one place can have on a community and how thankful our family, especially my grandpa and grandma and my uncle jeff and his family who have made lots of sacrifices to keep it going, is to be where they are.