Day 1: Afternoon into Evening

The Red Cross left. The fire trucks came back again around 3:30pm and put up another hose. F’s room was still burning or smoldering, I guess. We were able to walk though the house. About a foot of water, insulation, and charred material everywhere. I was really thankful that one of the firefighters was able to go in and find my purse and Husband’s wallet.  Although both items were drenched and completely ruined, I was able to pull out essentials – licenses, credit cards, and a few precious pictures that hadn’t stuck together yet.

            Walking through the house was like a dream. Nothing seemed real. Ceilings fallen. Granite countertop shattered. Windows broken. Loveseat on the kitchen table – crushed. If you looked up, there was no second floor. No roof. Even though much of the flames were contained to the upstairs, once walls and ceilings started to fall – it demolished the bottom floor, too. I killed me that all the kids’ rooms were destroyed.  I will have to post some pictures – words cannot begin to explain what it looked like.  Again, absolutely no words.

            Close to 6pm and we were all beyond exhausted. The neighbors had gone on with their day leaving us hours ago. We had walked through trying to grab the few pictures or items that were not visibly damaged by fire, water, smoke or ash.  Not many things.  But as you will see through this story – it’s not about things. It was the five of us and Husband’s mom & dad standing in front of the house. Do we just leave it? Do we lock the door? Does the front door even close all the way?  I don’t want to stay in a hotel. Finally, my mother-in-law tells us to get in the car and we will go to her house about 40 minutes away. At least for the night until we can get our bearings. We did.

I didn’t sleep at all. I kept hearing the crackling of the fire.  I would drift off to sleep and wake in a panic and scramble to the edge of the bed.  You know when you wake up and you can’t remember where you are? You frantically keep looking around the room trying to retrace the night.  That’s where I was.