When the Pilot Light is Out

The pastor didn’t mean to traumatize me with his sermon this morning.  He was talking about being filled with the Spirit and being a blazing flame instead of a flickering pilot light.

Pilot light?  Uh-oh!

About the time of my 12th birthday, we had a problem with our gas hot water heater.  After 61 years, some of the details are fuzzy, but I remember this as a two-day event.  On the first day, the pilot light on the water heater went out, but the gas continued to flow.  We all began to feel ill, but as I remember it, my Dad and I had been out of the house more that day than my Mother and brother Bud, so they were feeling really ill, but Dad and I were still pretty functional.  At some point in this mess, a rep of the utility company had come, and the problem was supposed to have been resolved.

The next evening there was a special meeting going on at church, and my Dad decided to attend.  A family friend had passed away, so Dad’s plan was to attend the calling hours following the meeting at church.  I was left at home with Mom and Bud.  I was the healthiest one who could tend to any needs that arose.

During the evening, Mom and I both smelled gas again.  Mom was still pretty weak and shaky.  She said that she was going down to the basement to light the pilot, and I should come with her since she was so wobbly.  She was my mother and at 12, I wasn’t yet in the habit of teenage defiance of authority (actually, I never did reach that point).  Afterward, I wished that I had argued with her that it was a bad idea.  The basement was, after all, full of gas.

I helped her down the stairs.  She knelt in front of the hot water heater and confirmed that the pilot was out.  She said she would relight it and struck the match.  Flames shot out of the hot water heater accompanied by a blast that knocked her backward.  She flew past me.  I smelled the awful odor of singed hair and burned flesh.  Her eyebrows were gone, her hair was singed, and her right hand was badly burned. And there I was…the responsible “adult.”

I got her up the stairs and into bed.  I was terrified that there would be a larger fire.  I got on the phone and called the church, but my Dad had already left for the calling hours.  I don’t remember to whom I talked, but help was on the way!  Someone went to get my Dad, and people from the church began arriving at our house to do whatever needed doing.  There was no such thing as 911 in those days.  A local doctor was called and came to the house.  The utility company was called and arrived to shut off the gas and assess the situation.  I remember a group of men standing on the front lawn in animated discussion.

Mom’s hair and eyebrows grew back, but it took her hand months to heal.  I had guilt feelings for a long time.  I knew enough from my science classes, that I felt I should have thought about the possibility of an explosion.  It was my first experience with the realization that a situation might arise in which I could make a better decision than one of my parents….who knew?

Long range outcomes have included:

*I have never had a gas range and avoid gas appliances whenever possible…not that there aren’t risks with electric appliances.  I could tell another story about that!

*I was once on a medication that I knew was messing with my head, and my husband was out of town.  I told my young teen son that if he saw me doing anything unreasonable, he had my permission to stop me.  Sometimes a child does make a better decision than the parent.

All of this has nothing to do with the pastor’s sermon which was about the way in which the Holy Spirit manifests himself differently in the lives of different people.  I did manage to shake off my unpleasant memories and pull my thoughts back to the sermon, but here I am on a Sunday afternoon over six decades later reliving the event.