“It’s like having another person in the room,” my mother told me.
Death had recently stolen my husband, and my youngest daughter had just gone off to college, the last of my chicks. I’d never been alone before in my house, and so this was her suggestion. A simple, practical thing can be powerful and she knew it. I lit a fire in the fireplace, and found my mother to be—of course—right.
Fireplace, campfire, candles on the dining room table--there’s life in the warmth of a flame. And it really IS companionship in a quiet, beautiful way.
Healing.
A fire warms our face and offers beauty, but it strangely speaks to the deeper part of us, drawing out the inevitable poison we all ingest during our hectic, often difficult, days. It holds the potential to heal the wounds in our hearts. That fireplace over the years didn’t stop in easing my raw loneliness of that time; over the years, it has brought company to my living room and fostered meaningful conversation and relationship.
A fireplace brings us together.
A fireplace just does that.
-Rebecca Coursen