My Fireplace

My Fireplace
    I only entered Lang’s house once. Before a wrecking crew demolished the eighteenth century home, Uncle Miller agreed to purchase a beautiful walnut mantelpiece from an upstairs room in the aging mansion and I went into the house with him.
    Before the wrecking crew pulled down the tall chimneys, I happened to go fishing in the pond behind the house. I never will forget the sight. The towering brick structures looked as if they were ruins Sherman left in Gone with the Wind.
    After the house was destroyed, the yard grew up, but the remaining oak and hickory trees made it an excellent place to squirrel hunt. My cousin, Carroll, hunted there more than I did, but I can still remember sitting underneath those hickory trees and waiting for a squirrel to move.
    When I’d become a quadriplegic, I learned in 1977 that if someone slipped a life jacket on me and carried me into Lake Greenwood’s warm waters in front of our lake cabin, I could move my legs.  My increasing desire to go to our lake cabin and go into the water soon caused my family to move to the lake.
    Our lake cabin was too small to comfortably house a family, so we decided to add a room to it. We also decided to add a chimney. I wanted to have the entire chimney built of old bricks, but the brick masons convinced me to just have the fireplace made of old bricks.
    We took Daddy’s red 1968 Ford pickup to get the 100 bricks from the foundation of chimney at Lang’s house. The wrecking crew had gotten the bricks from the chimneys, but they’d been too lazy to pick apart the bricks in the their foundations. We got enough bricks for my fireplace from just one of the chimneys‘ foundations.
    I now spend much time staring at the old bricks. I wonder if my life will ever be put back to good use the way those old bricks were. It’s easier for old bricks to find a purpose in life than it is for a quadriplegic to find a purpose, but I have faith that God will show me a way.