One brick at a time

The news came via email from my aunt last week – a fire had completely destroyed the church in Olean, N.Y., the town where she lives, my mom was married in and I was baptized in.

St. Joseph's Maronite Catholic Church was over 100 years old and was the central gathering place for my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.

The case is still under investigation, but foul play is not suspected. Perhaps old wiring, maybe a spark in the attic – no one knows exactly what started the blaze, but a church where thousands of weddings, baptisms, funerals and daily Masses were celebrated and observed is now a pile of rubble.

The horrendous fires currently raging across Texas drove home the point of what happens when fire roars through a city, town or a building.

Everything's either burned beyond recognition or damaged by smoke and water used to put out the flames. All that's left are cinders and memories.

I can still remember attending Mass at St. Joe's as a young girl – the church always had a lingering, faint scent of lemon furniture polish and incense. The same people sat in the same pews week after week, and bingo was a staple on Saturday nights.

My parents were married at St. Joe's, and the picture of my dad kissing my mom on the church steps is one of my favorites.

Three of their children received their first Holy Communion at St. Joe's, and I always loved stopping in for a quick prayer whenever we went back to Olean in the summers.

It seemed I'd no sooner read the news about St. Joe's than I heard about the Texas wildfires thundering across the state.

Tracking the fires online and reading posts on Facebook, the fires weren't a distant threat – they were within 200 miles of our home. With the strong winds we had this weekend, the wildfires quickly grew and seemed to pop up all over the place.

Sunday afternoon, my husband and I were out on country roads, and we drove past parched meadows and pastures. People were outside, tending to their horses, watering trees whose leaves were withered and sparse or simply standing outside, watching distant smoke from the fires slowly drift their way.

Skies that were blue slowly but surely turned gray, and bits of ash landed on my shirt when we stopped. The smell of those fires was in the air, and we knew people's lives were being decimated minute by minute.

So many people lost their homes and all their belongings in fires that seem impossible to believe, especially in a state where hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes are Mother Nature's wrath, not out-of-control wildfires.

Later that evening, I watched a video from the fire back in Olean, and one lady put her parish's disaster in perspective. She said the fire destroyed a building, yet she felt blessed. No one lost their life in the fire.

She was holding a brick from the old church and said anyone wishing to buy a salvaged brick could do so. All the money would go toward rebuilding St. Joe's.

For the people affected by floods or fires, nothing can bring back their treasured heirlooms and irreplaceable photos and belongings.

But when the time comes to rebuild, I want to keep in mind what that parishioner said – rebuilding is one brick at a time.

And that's what the resilient people in Olean will do as well as the people in Texas affected by fire. They will rebuild one brick, one cabinet and one crucifix at a time.

A home, as they say, is where the heart is and nothing can destroy that dwelling place.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.