I am 11 years old, and it is 1995 -- the year of one of the most deadly heatwaves in Chicago's history.

Because somehow, I am one of the few houses in my family with trustworthy air conditioning AND power in a blackout.

The power went out at around 6:15 PM.
The temperature that day was 102º before the heat index.
It created a sleep-over that we still talk about to this day among my cousins.

That my Mom and Dad's lessons about sharing what you have, as others may not have it, is part of that "common decency" that everyone deserves.

The heat wave of 1995 killed folks who didn't have a place to get cool or stay cool, especially elderly folks. My father, a CPD Officer, came home from a day of dead bodies, as he called it -- one of the worst and best days he'd experienced, as he'd gone from emptying his wallet at the ice cream truck for kids to discovery of no less than 5 bodies during wellness checks. It shook him to his core, and was one of the first times he'd shared one of the moments that'd shook him the most across 27 years. Going from that into my mother fielding phone calls to "just drop your kids off, our power is still on and the AC works", we became the refuge from our particular moment of worry.