The plea for donations keeps coming.
More money to rescue
more animals. More money for relief organisations like the Red Cross and the
Salvos. More money needed to rebuild and repair houses, schools, businesses,
farms and livelihoods in rural communities.
My husband is a generous man. He supports many organisations
doing wonderful work all over the world and at home with hard earned finances.
The greatest gift he’s giving this week is himself.
A donation of time and energy.
He has flown south to help battle bushfires with more than 200
volunteers from rural Queensland brigades.
Instead of reaching deep into his pocket, he dons his yellow
uniform and forfeits income as a solo business operator to work alongside fire
fighters from across regional Australia.
Andrew used to travel a lot for work. Our children are older
now, so we don’t miss him quite as much as we did when they were little.
To have daddy gone for a week was huge. Not only was I solo parenting,
we homeschooled too, so there was no reinforcement at the end of a long day
with a handful of children at different ages.
I longed for emotional support and physical help loving
them. Reading the bedtime stories and tucking them into bed with fresh love and
a kiss. Doing the early morning toddler shift when I was too tired to rally after
a broken night rocking a baby.
This week he is on risky night shift taming a monster down
south. Another one.
He fought fires here in Ravensbourne late last year then flew
south to Nowra with a local team in January to back up the fire fighters on the
south coast.
This time it’s Canberra. As I write, there has been at least
80,000ha of bush burnt. That must be a fair chunk of the ACT.
The fires have been relentless this summer. Everyone is
aware of that.
What many don’t think about is the fire fighter’s family at
home.
While dads are out on the fire front, mums are holding down
the home front.
They do their part for the cause by carrying the family load
in order to free them up to go.
One of my young mama friends farewelled her husband again this
past week. She bravely shoulders the responsibility for four young children and
homeschooling too.
My daughter-in-law does this every week as she regularly
waves our son off to work as a professional full-time fireman. She is a hero
too.
I salute all the mums with little ones. As they wave daddy
off, they turn to pick up parenting duty single handedly.
Our men are helping with the back end of the fires. My heart
goes out to the women who continue to wait and wonder when their men will return
safely home from the raging front line.
It reminds me of wartime. The enemy is a fire breathing
dragon and the battle seems relentless against the onslaught of destruction to
flora, fauna and even whole towns.
These long weeks, and now months, are a glimpse into what
others experienced over years, watching and waiting, wondering when or if
their menfolk would return home.
We experience a micro-glimpse of restless sleep,
oversensitive to bumps in the night and hyper-alert as a solo parent needs to
be when there’s no reassuring offsider to share responsibilities for the family’s
safety. We feel vulnerable and fragile. Humbly aware that safety and wellbeing
is never something to take for granted.
It is tiring for the teams who have already been at the fire
front fighting fierce flames for days in the heat and the hot wind. Someone still
needs to monitor the back end of burnt land. Massive logs can smoulder for months.
Mop up work needs to be vigilant and thorough.
Monitoring the blaze is often tedious work, with long, boring
hours of maintenance, keeping a watchful eye out for sparks and embers, aware
that the wind can change and danger is a real possibility.
That’s where these back-up crews come in, bringing relief
and reinforcements.
A heartfelt donation.
*Of course, I realise there are women involved in fire
fighting too. Full-time and volunteers. For the purpose of this piece, I am
writing from a wife’s perspective with her husband is away.
