Trish Cooper

I am sure we all have those times in our lives where we are traveling along, sometimes just trying to make it through the grind of the week, almost on auto-pilot ..and then something happens that brings everything into focus….and we are reminded just how lucky we are to wake up each morning, and we take stock of all that we have and all those we know, and how damn lucky we are to just be ALIVE…...early this morning, about 4 am , someone that lives just a street over from us, was out walking her dog before work..mind you she normally walks her dog about 45 minutes later, but for some reason her dog needed to go out early…...later today she told me that it had been probably close to a year since she had been out that early…..Right about now you all are probably wondering why Trish is rambling on about what time someone walked their dog, and what is the meaning of all of this right? Well, as she came up our street, she thought that she could see some haziness up at the top of the street, and thought that she was beginning to smell smoke…..as she approached the top of the hill and our house, she realized with a shock that the back of our house was on fire!!! Without a second of thought she ran up to our house and started pounding on our door and windows , and commanded her dog to start barking…...Half in a daze from being asleep, I literally tumbled down the stairs to find out what all the noise was about, and as I reached the bottom of the stairs I could smell smoke coming from the basement, where my boys bedroom is located….As I opened the front door, the woman used her cell phone to call 911, and ran around the back of the house with me to break the windows into my boys room and den…...we pulled them out safely and turned on the water to our outdoor hoses and tried to wet down the roof and keep the fire from spreading…..thanks to the heroic efforts from the fire dept, my neighbors, and that special woman…..no life was lost…...THINGS can be replaced…..our LOVED ONES cannot…...I truly believe that God sent an angel this morning to protect my family…...As I said before this woman was saying over and over that she never is out that early with her dog, usually it is about 45 minutes later that she walks her dog, but that morning her dog was unusually insistent that they had to go out then, or she would not have been out for almost another hour…...we all know that smoke kills most people before the actual flames because it knocks us unconscious due to the lack of oxygen … The fire dept said that it started because some type of animal chewed through the cords of our outdoor lighting, thus sparking a short, that caught our bushes and compost pile on fire…they determined that it was probably smoldering at about 2am and was just starting to really ignite when the lady was walking up our hill…...Though there is alot of damage, most of the things can be replaced and rebuilt…....what a reality check huh?? I believe that I have always been an appreciative person, but lets say that I feel so very lucky and blessed today…......God sent an angel to us, and I will never be able to fully express how thankful I am….....And to those who might not have believed in divine intervention before…..well, I think I have just witnessed one first hand….....As I said before we never know how much time we have on this earth, each day is not guaranteed….....Be thankful for each day you have, and for those people in your life that make life worth living…... I feel like I have been given a brand new view on life, and I feel so, so very blessed right now. For everyone is safe and alive, thanks from some angels that were sent to my home this morning…......