Canada 2012: “Come on Mom, Your favourite movie is on. Isn’t this the song you always sing?”.My 12-year-old daughter is calling me excitedly from the living room. The voice of the song coming to the kitchen opens my tired eyes and takes me to the past where I am singing and dancing like crazy with my friends. I run to the living room to see the video. My kids are laying on the carpet and the couch in their comfy pj’s. The lights are off and the big screen has my favourite actress with her magical beauty, dancing with all the background colourful lights, making it mesmerizing. The Kids have turned the sound on full and the beat is irresistible. I am very happy and singing along in a loud voice moving my hands on the beat. I tell my daughter about how many times I have watched this movie and we both are excitedly making plans to see it someday as a family. The song finishes and I drag myself back to the present. I come back to the kitchen to finish making lunch for tomorrow morning, but……..Holy smoke!!
No, literally! smoke engulfed my view, I was so immersed in the song that I didn’t smell the smoke. There are huge flames on the stove where I was cooking. Oh my God!!! I was about to fry eggs and instead left oil in the pan on the hot stove. The horrible sight of flames reaching up to the cabinets on top and smoke way up towards the roof leaves me frozen for a second. My heart is racing and I am very scared. I am panicking, but I have 4 kids at home and no adults except me. My husband is working out of town and I can not call him for help as I always do on every small problem. My mind is a blur of images and voices and information. By an article I read a long time ago, I know that putting a lid on fire can put it off. I find a big glass lid and put it on top. I am yelling at my other kids to come downstairs and grabbing a towel which we put on top of the birdcage. I cover the lid with the towel. The stove is electrical which is on my mind. I don’t want the fire to spread to the wires and become bigger than it already is. I always ask my husband to drag it out for cleaning but l have to do it today. With the fire raging on the stove, I am pulling the stove out to unplug it and yelling on my kids to go out of the house. I have to go over the fire to unplug the stove but I am not thinking about that at all, the only thing on my mind is how I need to protect my kids. I reach over and the heat splays across my face, I push my neck as far away as possible and quickly pull out the plug. I see the flames begin to recede. I check on kids standing outside, they are crying and frightened, but I can’t comfort them quite yet, I ask them to call 911. I come back inside and grab the burnt pan which is still heavily smoking and take it outside to throw on snow. I hear the fire trucks and ambulance sound far away. I truly know what the word relieved means now. I hug my kids, I am happy I have saved them as their dad would have.
ECS110 
Hey Iram!
I really enjoyed how you described the moment of being with your kids and enjoying their company. I also love hoe the kids remembered your favourite song and were able to have you reminisce about your past. I feel that there are some kids today who don’t know very much about their parents past because they are so immersed into their own world.
The second part of your blog was outstanding. When I was reading it, it entertained me and make me to want to keep reading because I wanted to find out how you were going to fix the problem. I really liked how you chose to speak about what a father would do for his kids if he was home and a problem like that occurred. I feel that the normative narratives that are conveyed through your blog are that the mother is suppose to play with the kids and make them happy while the father is at work and if something like this happens when the mother is home, it is almost unnatural for a women to have to deal with what you went through. I feel that this has always been a problem and will continue because women are not really taught how to do the “hard” jobs and when there comes a hard time we are just meant to figure it out.
Similar to my story, you ended it with a sense of pride and happiness towards your children. I couldn’t even imagine how you felt once you had dealt with the fire and you had your children in your arms gazing up at you with he smiles on their faces. That is a moment that I bet you will cherish forever.
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