I was not going to write this but

I have just finished reading an account of the Victorian bushfires by one of the Australian journalists. He and his family lost their home and much more.
It was a surreal experience reading that -unearthly, dreamlike. I had a sense of travelling as I read it. It brought back the odd sensation I had when we went through that area last year. Even then it seemed a little remote from the rest of the world. Oh, they have television and mobile 'phones and all the trappings of modern living but they are also a little apart from it all.
Which brings me to wonder about John who has lost his home too. For John life is not so simple as moving in with relatives or into a caravan for the time being. John needs accessible accommodation. He had called for help but it would not have got there. His neighbours realised he was still home. He was in bed because he was feeling unwell. They picked up and put him on the back seat of their car but they could not get his electric wheelchair out.
"Cat, I'm alive," he told me. I cannot begin to imagine his terror at having to leave through choking smoke, almost nil visibility, heat beyond description and the endless striking of little red embers that set another house, another shed, another car, another tree, gate, fence and anything else on fire. By the time the bricks of John's little house exploded in the heat there was nobody there to hear it...but John is alive. They have set up a computer link for him and he is working with me to help some of the other people with disabilities who lost everything except their lives.
Perhaps being alive really is all that matters. I don't know.