Interesting question. When I was a little girl, dying in a house fire was one of the scary thoughts that kept me from sleeping at night. It would terrify me, the thought of being trapped and then charred, I would lie there feeling my heart racing and having a hard time breathing. I knew it was all in my head, so I would try to find ways to calm myself down. I would picture my room in my mind to be all white, crisp and clean, and then whenever I would imagine smoke, soot or flames, I would take my brush and paint all the scary colors white, so that my room was all clean and crisp again. It took a while, but it eventually worked and that night terror faded away, to never plague me again.
If this former terror of mine ever happened, my first thoughts would be my daughter, who is still home and then, or at the same time, my two dogs. Material things would only come into consideration once everyone was out. If I had an opportunity, I would want to make it count, I would be hard-pressed to choose. The items I would choose don’t necessarily have any monetary value, but they have a lot of sentimental value. I would have to choose between my stamp collection that my grandfather started me on or at least one of the mirrors my father gave me. The stamp collection which is tiny, would be the easiest to grab but I know that my heart would be breaking knowing that one of my father’s gifts to me was lost. Both my grandfather and my father are gone and these are purely sentimental items and therefore priceless to me. So all that I can say is that I make sure that my house is ultra safeguarded with smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms and a security system that instantly alerts the fire department when any of these alarms are tripped. Moreover, I live right across the street from the fire department. I would never want to make this horrendous choice and I hope that I will never have to, it would break my heart.
