Blog Archives
-
Mills: Is There a Correct Response to Tragedy?
By Cynthia Mills - Thursday April 18, 2013
Life is so busy, so busy, all the time. With three homeschooled children who are into various activities, a house in which I am determined to finish several unfinished projects, and a husband who works a full-time job, a part-time job, is attending online college classes full-time and still spends every second he can with his family, I feel like we are the epitome of busy. We define it this spring. In the middle of our personal chaos though, tragedies are happening all around our country. These tragedies have affected us little on a physical level. We have paused momentarily to read up on the news of the Boston Marathon and now the explosion in West, Texas . I'm not the crying kind, but I've said many prayers for those affected... -
A Return to College Life
By Cynthia Mills - Friday March 15, 2013When your firefighter comes to you after a 48-hour shift followed by a four-day out-of-state class and another 48-hour shift and says, "I want to go back to college and finish my degree," the correct response is: a) Blind panic that makes you so dizzy that you nearly faint in the dinner you're fixing b) A smile and a stifled squeak of anxiety over the extra burden of time this will impose c) Encouraging words and a promise of support throughout the entire process d) A reverse question of, "What? Now? Why now?" I'd have to say, I experienced all four of those responses when my firefighter came to me with this very request last month. Even though I wholeheartedly support his efforts to continue his education and advance in the fire... -
Burying One of Our Own
By Cynthia Mills - Wednesday December 26, 2012
Burying one of our own…it’s a scenario no department wants to face, but most all departments train for anyways. No amount of training can ever prepare a fire family for the heartache of dealing with a death of their own, especially near the holidays. In our fire family’s case, this Christmas Eve will be spent at a cemetery, lying to rest one of our most beloved and most cherished family members: three-year-old Cade Legend Moyer, the son of one of our lieutenants. This is hard. There are more descriptive phrases I could use, but nothing I could say would convey the magnitude of pain we all feel. As part of one of the most amazing fire families anywhere, we all hurt when one of us hurts this deeply. We all grieve the loss of... -
Daddy, the Tearjerker
By Cynthia Mills - Tuesday October 23, 2012Okay, now he did it. Once again, my firefighter went and left the state for a class. It is only four days, for four different months. This shouldn’t be a big deal. For me, it isn’t. But for our youngest daughter, the softest petal in our family flower, this absence is a universe-quaking, life-altering catastrophic event. Cameron is only 6 years old. She has spent her whole life with her daddy going to the firehouse for shift days. She understands overtime and buddy swaps that may take him away for three days at a time. Add on a day of his second job on his first day away from the firehouse and sometimes it is four days between daddy sightings even when he’s still in town. His current class is only a four-day class. His last... -
The Little Things
By Cynthia Mills - Tuesday September 25, 2012Why should this homecoming be any different from the end of a normal shift? Really, maybe it shouldn’t have. But we tend to get overly excited about the little things in life and so after only four days of being without our fireman, my girls and I were elated that he would be home again soon. My firefighter and two of his crew members spent four days of travel and class time, attending a swift-water rescue course in Tennessee. According to him, it was one of the most physically demanding classes he had ever taken; basically it kicked his butt. But they all did well, had a blast and want to take Level II next summer. My fireman was exhausted and sore in ways he couldn’t describe, but he was also happy to be coming home. While he... -
Losing the Inspirer, Not the Inspiration
By Cynthia Mills - Monday June 25, 2012Millions of events, tiny or catastrophic, occur in a person’s lifetime and lead that person to become who he is. Each one of us is guided, to some extent, by these events. We make choices based on these events. We fight against them. We embrace them. We accept or deny them. We learn from them, expand on them, prevent their recurrence, or are inspired by them. It is one of the inspiring events that I ponder today. Twenty-six years ago, my husband decided to become a fireman. In job interviews, many prospective firefighters will say, “I’ve wanted to be a firefighter since I was a kid.” It is likely an honest, yet vague, canned answer. My husband can pinpoint the exact moment he felt called to serve his community, to save what... -
The Vigilant Hose Company: A Family Visit
By Cynthia Mills - Sunday May 20, 2012Vacations for us are fun, relaxing, and almost always educational. Maybe we’re a family of nerds or maybe we just value the rich history that our country has to offer. No matter what the reason, we spent Spring break visiting Gettysburg, PA. Of course for a firefighter’s family, what Gettysburg trip would be complete without a visit to Emmitsburg, MD? We took a morning and visited the National Fire Academy to see the National Fallen Firefighter’s Memorial with names we recognized and the devoted glow of the Eternal Flame. We stood in awe of the great statues of the firemen raising the flag among the rubble of September 11. We saw some of the beauty of the campus that has been home to our fireman on multiple occasions... -
Fire Wife Preppers
By Cynthia Mills - Monday February 6, 2012A friend recently sent me a link to the National Geographic channel's Doomsday Preppers series, jokingly asking if we are going to be in it. Nope. Not interested, thanks. I completely understand why these people prep though. Just three decades ago, I would go to my grandparents' house and make use of their preps, like canned foods, stored water, a greenhouse full of plants, pecan trees in the yard and enough extra toilet paper and napkins to stock an aircraft carrier. They always looked towards the future and were prepared for anything that may come, good or bad. I now have to wonder, when did people stop thinking that way? As for me, I do prep, in a sense. I think it would be just plain ridiculous not to. I am a mother of three... -
Operation Falling Hippo: A Firefighting Family's Homeschooling Downtime
By Cynthia Mills - Thursday January 5, 2012
Ahhh…the joys of teaching my girls at home. There's rarely ever been a dull moment in my life. After all, I came from a family of crazy people (even though I love them dearly, they're all pretty close to an outhouse rat on the sanity scale,) I married a firefighter, I birthed three daughters for him and we decided that home educating is the way to go. Since the promise was for better or worse, my fireman is still hanging around after all these years, but usually the laughs are worth it for him. Some days though, I question our judgment. I got a bowl of reheated chili for lunch today and was just settling down to eat, when I noticed something fall on our front lawn. What the heck was that? I looked out the window to see a stuffed... -
Are We Watching the Movie or Training for Work?
By Cynthia Mills - Sunday December 18, 2011Watching movies with my firefighter is often a test of will for me. I’m not a sappy kind of woman who wants her romance movies, a box of chocolates and a handful of tissues to make it through our couples movie time. I’d take the chocolates any time, but romance and tears are best left to women who know how to use them. I’m more the action type. My husband loves this because he never has to appease me with chick flicks in an effort to win over my romantic side later in the evening. We like the same things, like war movies, action movies, comedies, documentaries and, of course, the obligatory rescue movies. Who in the rescue realm does not love movies about their beloved profession? The problem that arises is that I watch...
