Thanksgiving and after

Thanksgiving was good for us. I worked diligently, according to a list I prepared, and accomplished everything I needed to accomplish without losing my sanity. It made Thanksgiving Day so much more enjoyable. (I did have a bit of an anxiety attack on Wednesday preceding, when my 9-person dinner, in a matter of 4 hours, turned into a 19-person dinner. I had to go to WalMart and pick up a few more things. Then I had to cook some more things. Fortunately, I always overestimate how much I food we will need, so we were ok.) I only had a little bit to do on the day before people began arriving. It was festive and relaxing. I enjoyed it immensely.

Black Friday
Friday morning I woke at 3:40am. I met some friends at WalMart, while T went to Best Buy and Circuit City. I left at 5:00 and went to a few more places, dropped things at home, and then went to a few more places. I met T and my friends for breakfast at IHOP. I did some more shopping, went home again, and did some more shopping. Finally, we ended our day on the couch watching a movie. I went to bed at about 11:00pm satisfied and sure I was going to finally get some rest after a week with none. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

At 2:00am my phone rang. It was my father. Now, any normal person would be immediately alarmed at a 2:00am phone call. However, normal people do not have my father in their lives. He or my mother calls us at ridiculous hours for not terribly important reasons at least once a month. Groggy and irritated, I answered the phone. At first, his phone cut out, and I couldn’t make out what he said. It had something to do with my grandparents. I was immediately more alert.

“What?” I asked him.

“Your Grandma and Papaw’s house just burned to the ground,” he said evenly.

I couldn’t breathe for a second. “What!?!! I don’t understand. What? How…” I couldn’t think. My aunt and uncle live there with their 4 year old niece, their 18-year-old son, their grown pregnant daughter, her husband, and their 9-month-old son, who was born at 25 weeks and has tremendous problems. My grandparents rotate between living there and staying in their travel trailer on our denomination’s campground property in Sparks. “Is everyone okay?” It was all I could think of. He said that everyone made it out, and he and my mom were on their way in.

By that time, T was awake. I laid back down beside him, stunned and unsure what to do. We talked for a few minutes about whether we should head over or if we would just be in the way. I called my aunt and my cousin. Both were so hysterical that I could barely make out what they were saying. We realized that neither of us was going to get any more sleep, so we got up and dressed and went to the house.

When we turned onto the street several blocks away, we could see the fire trucks’ lights. There was no way t get close, so we parked several houses down and walked. There were five fire trucks and it seemed like hundreds of firemen (there were probably only 15 or 20). Freezing wind was blowing like crazy and sliced right through my sweatshirt. We trudged through the soggy yard (there was water everywhere) to find my family.

I can’t really tell you everything that followed. It felt so unreal. My grandparent’s house, the house my dad grew up in, the house from my childhood memories, the house I brought my son home from the hospital to, the house they have had for 40 years, was charred. The bricks were still standing, but black smoke poured out of large glassless windows. An occasional flame jumped out of the attic. My aunt sobbed into my father’s chest, “Oh Ricky! My Daddy’s house, my daddy’s house! Oh Ricky it’s gone!” My dad smoothed her hair and told her that everything was going to be ok as long as all the people were ok.

I walked from person to person, place to place, not really knowing what I was doing or where I was going. Everything just seemed so unreal. People were crying or consoling, and everyone had that same wide-eyed disbelieving look on their faces. From what we could see through the windows, everything was gone. It was all black and bleak. For the rest of the night, we all rotated between wandering, as I had been doing, and warming in another cousin’s house that sits toward the back of my grandparents’ property.

Fortunately, my grandparent’s were in Sparks at the time. They had called my grandfather immediately, and he wanted to come right then. My cousin Robert, who lives in the little house, talked him out of coming until it was lighter. He arrived around 6:00am.

T & I went home at about six and slept until nine. We spent most of the day Saturday with my family at what was left of the house. Shortly after we came back, we toured the house. I’ve seen things about the devastation of fire on the news. Intellectually, I understand what it can do. I’ve seen fire burn things. But none of that prepared me for what I experienced walking through the house. Everything was gone. Melody, the 4year old, had a large pink plastic princess toddler bed. It was completely melted. We walked over piles of ashes of who knows what everywhere. Rooms the fire had not actually touched were black with smoke. Everything that was not burned, was melted—televisions, computers, DVDs, hangers, the baby’s continuous feed. It was incredible. The back porch/utility room had held shelves and shelves of my granparents’ things. Everything was gone. There were only pieces of the ceramic Christmas trees my grandmother made when I was a child. Many things were melted together and you couldn’t tell what you were looking at. Other things were just piles of ash or burned beyond recognition.

Last week was an emotional roller coaster. The Red Cross moved my aunt and her family into a hotel for a few days. The insurance company paid for my grandparents to have a room in the same hotel. I felt like I needed to be a rock for my family since they had lost so much. But I had lost too, and I needed to cry without worrying that I might cause my already fragile family to break down again. I called a few friends and cried. They were awesome. My friends and our church began donating things to help. None of the people who lived in the house had made it out with more than the clothes on their backs. They had no identification, no personal items like soap or toothbrushes, not even shoes. The Red Cross gave them all a small bag with a toothbrush, a tiny tube of toothpaste and a bar of soap—enough to last for a few days. Friends supplied the rest. People began donating used items and buying new things to help. I was overwhelmed at the outpouring of compassion. It was incredible.

Since Robert’s house is a tiny 1 bedroom and was being used as a headquarters, my house became the donation site. I picked up donations of things and sorted, washed, folded and stored them. I took clean laundry to my aunt’s family, and hauled away their dirty laundry. I sorted toys, clothes, personal items, towels, washcloths, household items—everything you can think of. It has been exhausting, but wonderful work.

The insurance company has rented them a house for 6 months. They moved in yesterday. I’m beginning to take things over there, so that they have what they need. I’m emotionally and physically exhausted, and glad it is almost over.

This season, I have much to be thankful for. 2 pets died in that fire. Melody found it and tried to put it out before she woke my uncle and aunt. Any or all of them could so easily have died. The fire investigators found that it was caused by a bad cord on my aunt’s alarm clock. Can you imagine?

I am so grateful no one was hurt; don’t misunderstand anything I’m saying. But I am so sad that so much was lost. I’m sad that I’ll never be able to walk through the halls again and be reminded of something that happened when I was a child. I’m sad that my children won’t have the opportunity to walk through and let me tell them what happened in that house or remember things on their own. At times, I thought I hated that house. At times, it felt like a prison too me. At other times, it was a shelter.

As we approach Christmas, I think of all the things I will never see again, like Grandma’s ugly Christmas tree. She bought that thing when my oldest cousin was a baby. Grandma thought it was so beautiful, but we all thought it was ugly. She decorated it with ropes of big, gaudy garland and gobs of icicles. We would all secretly make fun of it. I thought I’d be so happy when it was gone. Now it is. I’ll never see that ugly thing again, and strangely, I’m not happy at all. In fact, I cried about that stupid tree a few days ago. It’s weird to realize things you thought you hated, mean so much to you.

I don’t know how to end this except to tell you that I am better, we all are. I’m sure there will still be days when I am teary and sad. But as we approach Christmas, I am thankful and hopeful.