In Compassion and Empathy

Deepest condolences for all the losses….

I can’t breathe.
She’s upstairs and I can’t do anything more to save the downstairs. The edges of things crinkle, grow brighter, then dissolve like paper and the kitchen continues to burn. My extinguisher is empty, at least nothing comes out of it anymore. I want to throw it at the fire. I drop it, my face feeling like the sun is beating it. Loud cracklings, a chaotic committee of things screaming for voice.
I have to let go. My home. Our home. Green, brown, blue, the pictures on the walls sagging.
She is upstairs. The photo albums in the closet. Our past.
I run up the stairs, turn on the landing, the bottom of my shoes sticking, but my thighs are strong. Feet, thighs, pull, push and she is in my arms.
“Mama, you’re hot.”
The pink walls, I grab her Winnie the Pooh, she holds it tightly sensing my urgency.
Her body is so small and so heavy as we tumble into my room. The noises downstairs, hard cracking, splutters of the house surrendering in relief. I set her down by the window and pull out the metal and rope emergency ladder.
Would she have no history? No memory of this home or our joy? I force at the screen and it won’t come off.
“Mama, what’s happening?”
I bend down to her and touch her cheek. “I need your help. I can’t get the screen off. Do you want to climb down a ladder?”
“No, Mommy.” She hugs her pooh bear to her and I want only to hold her.
I push, pull. Push, pull. Shove, bang. Finally I grab the scissors from next to the remote, goodbye. I stab at the screen, finally, tearing through, metal through metal. She buries her face into the yellow bear fur.
The window clear, I let the rungs fall and hook the ladder.
“Climb on my back, Honey. Hold on tight.” She is wet against me.
The bed falls through the floor.
“Mommy.”
One thing, more. Not too far. The external hard drive on the ottoman. Goodbye.  I tuck it deep in my pocket, the memories, to give her, of our lives here. of her birth. Of how much we all love her. Of who she is.
Her arm squeezing tight against my larynx, I climb down a rung at a time.
Sirens.

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