Three days later, she describes how the bush fires had threatened the town she lives in. They had cleared the garden of all debris and flammable material, and soaked everything in water, as a deterrent. But the fire fronts had advanced, they were told to evacuate, and then she had been given only a few hours in which to return to her house and collect the things of most value to her before the fierce winds changed direction again.
She said she stood, strangely energised with excess adrenaline, in the middle of her home and wondered what she should take. Her family and pets were safe. What mattered most to her, faced with this disaster? Her computers? Her books? Her music? Paintings done by her husband? Her dog’s special basket and food and water bowls?
What a decision to have to make. I remember 15 years ago when the tsunami hit Sri Lanka, an elderly couple in Mount Lavinia, who had been teachers of my parents in their school days, would not believe the sea would come up to their home. They did not want to leave. How could they even begin to move anything out of there? They did not have the physical strength to lift anything. It was all we could do to persuade them to come with us in the car to higher ground, before the wave hit.
We only knew about the tsunami because someone in a neighbouring house had cable TV and we heard there had been an earthquake in Indonesia. And when we had arrived, with an iced cake in a beautiful box, to have morning tea with them on Boxing Day, they said the ocean had vanished. The tide had gone out. It was abnormal.
Experience of recent bush fires in Sydney made us suggest to them that they should take their important personal documents such as passports, bank books, birth certificates and land title deeds. These are crucial, from a practical point of view. But the most important things to save are all the photographs and albums of family pictures, above all else. These cannot be replaced, especially if there are no digital copies of them.
My friend is a writer, and she said that, for her, deciding what books to take was excruciating. In the end, she ran out of time and had to leave them. She was still, when I started to write this article, unsure if her home had survived or not. It now appears that her home has been lost to the fire.
Her description of her situation of choice faced with a firestorm reminded me of the great Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘A Scandal In Bohemia’. The great detective solves a mystery in that instance by himself orchestrating the threat of fire, and observing the actions of a woman who had concealed a document in a place no one had been able to find.
Sherlock Holmes explains his thinking:
‘When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most. It is a perfectly overpowering impulse... A married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box. Now it was clear to me that our lady of today had nothing in the house more precious to her than what we are in quest of. She would rush to secure it.’
The Holy Bible endorses this perspective as well. In the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 6, Verse 21, we are told Jesus told his disciples ‘Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’.
Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs outlines the need for shelter, food and sleep as ground-level, universal, basic requirements for human survival. The next level up is human contact, affection and social connection. What a lot of people realize after they have been evacuated is how unnecessary a lot of things we accumulate are, for our actual lives. They make our lives more comfortable and convenient, but are ultimately replaceable.
What cannot be replaced are the lives of living beings, and homes which have been built by the hands of their owners. Religion teaches us to detach ourselves from material things, but the everyday objects of our lives are dear to us. It is not only the value of our homes measured in square feet or perches, but the value of the lives we live in them, that we try to secure.
I would advise not waiting for an emergency to make these decisions. Calmly, carefully, select items which mean a great deal to you, from each room in your home. Put all the things you cannot live without, including photograph albums and family pictures, in a suitcase with a strong handle, and keep this in an accessible place.
That bag should contain everything you need to start all over again, if you should ever need to.
15 years ago, my parents’ teachers’ home in Mount Lavinia was spared: because of the angle at which it was built, it was not directly in the way of the terrible wave. But the salt water destroyed their garden, and came right up to their door.
There are still two months of summer temperatures ahead for Australia, and this is going to be like fighting a war. The country will not be the same again. Thousands of animals have already perished: livestock and pets as well as wildlife. Decisions about what to take and what to leave, what is irreplaceable and what is replaceable, will be made by thousands of people.
Only when the immediate threat to personal survival is over, can the damage to property and land be assessed, and the rebuilding and replanting start.
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