Evacuation Order

James and I have known each other our whole lives, next door neighbors like fate made us best friends. We had our share of lemonade stands and other young entrepreneurs ambitious endeavors like garage sales, getting our parents to bake to run a drive way Cafe, raising money for school fundraisers or us just wanting to get our parents something nice, instead of just handmade presents. When Jenny moved into the house besides James she joined in our adventures of imagination from riding our bikes and pretending it was a motorcycle or horses and our weekend driveway business, life was good, but it didn't last we didn't know the reason Jenny's family had moved here was for the cancer hospital. One day as we ran our business of Ived sweet tea and baked goods we noticed Jenny was pale and weak, we yelled for our parents as we were scared, a 10 year old shouldn't look so bad. Her parents rushed her to the hospital and they got the devastating news, her cancer was back, that's when they decided to tell us everything, James and I were in shock and cried together after that all our weekends raised money for childhood cancer treatments. Our best friend was brave and beautiful living life to the fullest with us for 3 more years, then with us there at her bed side at home on her 13th birthday she passed away, she had joked before when the doctor said she was no longer responding to treatment that it would be a graduation she would become a angel and always watch out for us both. We kept up our weekend fundraisers, our adventures went the same we started to get in to different programs for youth, James went with the program from the fire fighters, at first the program focused on fitness and healthy eating, age 14 added learning more about fire safety and how they fight the fires, it kept adding until age 16 when you were able to take part in some of the drills. I did babysitting course that year, added that I would donate 20% of my earnings from their booking would go to charity, I found a program called youth for change and joined it, I never really left it as I ended up one of the leaders after high-school. The program focused does still focus on making a local difference, we did alley and park clean ups, helped make and serve meals at a few churches for out of the cold dinners, when I joined I suggest we help raise money and give our time to the Children's hospital and research of beating childhood cancers, others suggested a charity of the month to do 12 different ones a year, it was agreed on and continues to this day, or did till the fire. My mind came back to the present, our long road trip to my aunts house, we haven't gotten far since leaving home, 3 hours of bumper to bumper, the whole area is being uder evacuation orders that's a lot of people and vehicles fleeing. Many helicopters have flown over, they look like air ambulances most likely evacuating patients from the hospital, I feel guilty as I would prefer to help save lives, but I couldn't break my parents hearts, sure first year college student but I still live at home and I didn't go for my license, I mainly bike every where. My mom seemed happy when I told them I wanted to live at home and go to our local college to reduce my footprint on the environment and keep my job as assistant director of the youth program. I hope all those families are ok, my heart keeps sinking as we slowly keep driving away, the visibility isn't the best, it will be a long trip to my aunt's but who knows how long this fire will rage, and how much more it will claim in its path, I haven't heard the death toll but with how sad and worried I am, I am in no rush to know. "Does anyone want a snack I have the snack bag here between my feet?" mom asked breaking the silence, "no thanks honey, maybe when we get a little further, to stressed to eat now." Dad is gripping the steering wheel pretty tightly and you can see he is tense, "what about you Jessica?", I think for a moment was I hungry, not exactly more thirsty then anything, "any drinks in that bag mom?" she goes into a cooler bag that is also by her feet, " would you like a water?" " yes please, mom" she passes the water bottle back to me in the back seat, my thoughts return to the flashbacks of my life so far as I drink in not only the water, but this apocalyptic atmosphere that surrounds us, till now this was nothing more then a scene in a movie, but I guess that wasn't entirely true. Dad had watched it unfold when Greece was burning and Australia, who knew it would happen to us, perhaps dad did, after all he has a job with those fire proof safes and our basement is a prototype of a larger model the company had been working on, flood, fire and earthquake proof or that is the hope, it isn't proven yet, but dad had faith in it and half our basement is a great safe, when the warnings started, we gathered everything that was important but not going to fit in the van to the basement safe, I guess we will see upon return if it worked. My dad as tense as he is now when the warnings were issued it could come our way and to be ready, scanned photo albums to flash drives, those are in the trunk, photos with frames of meaning into fire proof safes, same as important documents, identification, credit cards, bank cards, money, fire proof safe in the trunk with key around mom's neck, he calmly prepared everything. Anything that isn't as important, that could be replaced was left in place, like furniture. He and Mom went shopping for necessities for the trip, snack food, drinks fill the tank of the van, ladder brackets and whatever that white holder thing is on the roof, he managed to pack at quite a few things. It's hard to tell what time it is or how far we have actually travelled, my thoughts keep returning to memories of growing up in that neighborhood. I end up closing my eyes and falling asleep.