Something Smells…

I got the text from my son while I was at work – something no parent wants to read: “…the school is on fire”. Knowing that there was likely to be a school follow-up, when he came home we just waited to hear. He kept following on his social media. When the information came out about 7 pm that the fire was out, we both breathed a sigh of relief.

UNTIL THE NEXT MORNING…

I was worried, and I woke up early to check headlines…only to find out that the school was on fire AGAIN – a “second” fire. This one was bigger, and consumed the auditorium and parts of the main building, particularly on the upper floor. Here is how one media outlet covered it: https://globalnews.ca/news/5248385/second-fire-york-memorial-ci/

The school situation aside, from a personal perspective, we were dealing with the loss of expensive items in the fire. We knew the items that were in the classroom had been lost, but we had additional items in another, seemingly untouched part of the building. School officials had us log in our losses, and we were told that some of the items may be returned. So we waited…

And we waited…

And we waited…

And we waited…

We waited to hear word on our items, and we waited to hear about the cause of the fire. In actual fact, other fires happened in the city and fire reports were made BUT OURS took much longer.

Nearly four months after the fire(s) occurred, we were given the following information: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/york-memorial-memo-fire-cause-1.5264889 . After the long wait, the report seemed….less than expected.

Like the ruins of our once beautiful, historic Grande Dame of a building, something “smells”.