Monday morning, November 12, 2007
Roger Bielasz, MD is a popular physician. He and his wife Dena were known up and down Highland Valley Road. The view of the San Pasqual Valley just down the way from the Wild Animal Park was a source of pride. Roger prepared for potential fire danger the way he prepared for a surgical procedure. No detail was left unexamined.
As he took his friends to his viewpoint over-looking the valley below to the ridges off in the distance under the clear skies of North County, they would often ask, “Do you ever worry about the fire danger?” Roger had an answer.
His house was a model of fire safety and preparedness. All the windows were replaced with fire-safe dual pane fire-resistant materials. The same with the roof. And the decking surrounding the house. All of it state-of-the-art non-flammable synthetics. He was ready. He surrounded the property with succulent ground cover and kept it irrigated. He cleared the dry brush around the house. His insurance agent told him that everyone in the neighborhood should follow his lead. In the risk management business – the doctor’s house was Exhibit A on how it should be done.
So before they went to bed that late October night with the television set on, they monitored the fire’s progress on round the clock coverage, switching stations one after the other to see if maybe the flames might head their way. Satisfied they were in the clear, they shut off the lights and the noise of Breaking News and drifted off to sleep. At one thirty in the morning, high winds slammed against those dual pain windows in the bedroom and woke them up. Roger raced to the large window in the living room. A horrifying orange and yellow light filled the room – just outside, racing up the ridge were twenty foot flames heading right for the house.
“Dena – we’ve got to leave!” he called out. They began stuffing two suitcases they kept in the closet of their master suite. But it was too late. They could feel the heat of the flames outside, already lapping up against the house. Roger grabbed Dena by the hand and barefoot, they raced outside. Flames surrounded the property. There was nowhere to go. “In the pool,” Roger cried. And the two of them jumped into the swimming pool and waded through the embers and the howling wind to a shelter beneath a rock overhang at the spa.
It was barely two in the morning. From their place in the cold shallow water they watched. The dream home they occupied together for nineteen years succumbed to the flames. The roof collapsed. The walls fell. The fire-retardant windows melted, as did the deck and the wrought iron railings twisting into a tangled mass of molten metal. Later they talked haltingly about the destruction that followed. For three hours they held each other in the water as the heat intensified. “Keep your hair wet,” Dena shouted over the deafening noise of the fire. “Don’t let your hair catch fire,” she warned Roger. Over and over, they dunked themselves in the pool under the rocks that gave them shelter. Burning embers, flaming debris hit the pool water before them hissing and steaming just inches away. The scene was devastating. Finally the kitchen was exposed, and the refrigerator stood as the last bastion against the intense heat. They could hear cans exploding in the pantry and their collection of fine wines popping like firecrackers as glass shattered. The steel refrigerator melted as they watched, disappearing into the flames like candle wax.
As Roger stood in the protective waters of the pool next to his shivering wife, he thought about his mother. She died just a year before. She was a spiritual woman who took pride in her son’s considerable success. “My son is a physician,” she would tell her friends with a smile. But Roger knew her well. He knew she prayed for him regularly. He knew she cared more about his soul than his impressive collection of stuff. And just before she died, she told him that she would be his guardian angel. She handed him a tin box. Inside were a Book of Prayer and a tiny New Testament. Shortly after he buried his mother, he placed the box on the mantle over the fireplace in the living room of his fire-proof house. There was a strange and unexpected reverence about that box that gripped the hardened scientist who rarely allowed himself the indulgence of reverence.
Roger and Dena pulled themselves out of the water in a state of shock. They survived. Their house did not. Up and down the street, that wonderful street with the wide vistas, neighbors shared their fate. The homes were gone. Three days later, they learned that investigators confirmed their fears. The couple next door did not escape. The remains of their bodies were found in the ash somewhere near their bedroom.
As they sifted through the ruins, still smoldering, the heavy smell of smoke lingering over their property, the pool black with soot, charred debris still floating on the surface, they wandered into the garden. An angel stood there, the angel Roger put there in memory of his mother. Strangely, it was untouched, not even singed, looking up just as it did before disaster hit. Arms wide open. Roger remembered. His Guardian Angel. He called Dena over. She took one look. She reached for her husband. Tears filled her eyes.
Next to the angel in the garden was a page from a book. The edges were charred. But the page remained in tact. Roger reached down and picked it up; the text was clear. He could only reach one conclusion. It was a page from the prayer book in the tin box on the mantel. Somehow it drifted through the heat to the garden and found its rest next to the angel. The scripture read, “Be strong of good courage. Be not afraid. The Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Pastor Jim, a good friend of mine, went to high school with Roger. Roger told this riveting story to his old friend and said, “You know, Jim, this whole thing has got me thinking.”
Jim answered, “I guess so, Rog.”
* * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader. Once in a great while, circumstance calls all our values into question. The things we assume, the path we follow, the process we employ all of them are up for review.
Roger and Dena’s story caught the media’s attention. They were interviewed by CNN and CBS. They were featured in the Los Angeles Times, the North County Register and the San Diego Tribune. Jim called his old high school pal, and they spoke for nearly an hour.
There’s a newfound humility in the good doctor’s voice these days. He’s thinking about his mother’s prayers; and the reality that transcends the scientific method.
As you and I contemplate those three unscheduled hours in four feet of water in the middle of the night; when survival hung in the balance; we re-evaluate, too.
It’s a restoration of the soul. Somewhere, a mother smiles.
Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2007 Posted in Vancouver, BC
Wow, Ken, great story! I don’t know where you find these stories, but it is so cool to see God at work in people’s lives, even through tragedy. And, it sure gives me pause to contemplate just where my priorities have been lately. Thanks.
Ken, I have been thinking lately about the nature of God’s work in the world and how it seems that everything that happens, both good and bad seems intended to have redemptive meaning or purpose (not that we always recognize or accept it). I was struck in this story by the mother’s prayers and her simple gift which are the touchstone of God’s grace in this deep and distressing trouble.
It is now just about a month since my mother died and I have frequently awakened to how much I miss her prayers but this story makes me realize that the effect of those prayers continues.
Thanks, Dan
Great story and what a wonderul legacy Roger’s mother has given him. Although she is not here, God continues to honor her prayers. Thanks for the encouragement!
great story…well told…especially enjoyed hearing the “rest of the story”.
Kemper,
You always amaze me each Monday as I await your “Focus”. You seem to be writing to me, with just what I need to navigate my week. Your life, even in challanging times inspires this kid you met 40 years ago. Thanks for being steadfast.
Your Bro,
Craig Holiday
Ken, thanks for the inspiring story. Less than a year ago, three small children were killed in a traffic collision on the freeway near my home. A young family returning from shopping was struck by a large truck, changing their lives forever. The three children, two girls and one boy, were under the age of seven. I drive near the spot of this tragic accident every day and pray for the family, admiring the beautiful flowers that are still left in their memory by loving members of this community. I just heard today that the grieving couple, desperately missing the voices of these small children, decided to have another child. They are now pregnant with triplets, two girls and a boy. Is this a miracle? I don’t know. Is this God? Definitely! Blessings to all….
Ken: A friend of mine and her husband, here in VC, were best friends for many years with the couple who perished next door to Roger and Dena. Hearing Lyn describe the events of that week, her shock over the deaths, and reading this story remind me of how much WE are not in control. It’s in God’s hands.
I met this couple tonight at dinner and for the first time, heard this touching story firsthand. Roger’s eyes teared up as he told the story, and Dena sat aside nodding. The presence of their angel and the impact she had on their lives was so apparent in their words and emotions.
It was both touching and validating, as it was so similar to a story from when my father died. I was 13. He was a physician also who died of cancer. After the last rights mass at our home, everyone said their goodbyes, but I could not. I couldn’t kiss the forehead of that cold lifeless shell of a person. Afterwards, I felt intense pangs of guilt for not kissing him goodbye properly,like the rest of the family. it just didn’t feel like he was in that shell. His paternal, ever caring, ever watchful spirit had left.
As my big brother and I lay on the family room sofa, waiting for the hurst to come and take his body away, we looked up through the glass doors of our family room, past the pool area and up onto a hilly 1/2 acre where my father had planted numerous fruit trees. It was our special place to go on Saturdays to pick plums, have picnics and just be at peace in the Sonoma county sunshine. Around it, my father had built an 8′ white fence to keep the deer away from the fruit trees…. But this morning, right after Dad passed, a 12 point Buck lay there, right in the middle of our special hill…a splendid masculine, beautiful animal facing down into our home, watching us, proudly, and peacefully. After about 2 hours…When the hurst came to take my fathers body away, and as the orange light of dawn began to break through the darkness, the Buck left.
Our priest who had just implemented the last rights sacrament walked into our family room, with a book in his hand. It was the daily scripture around which every catholic priest around the world that day would center his homily. That morning of January 17th, the scripture read: “As the deer yearns for running water, my soul yearns for you, the God who is my life, When shall I see the face of God?
It was then that I knew a sign was being sent to us: that my father in fact was not in the hurst or in the shell of humanity being sadly carried away… that he was in fact with God, and that beautiful, powerful animal was there to tell us so.
Dena and Roger, our angels communicate in such subtle but glorious ways… to the hearts and minds who are sensitive and open enough to hear them.
… and WE most certainly have.