I’ll never forget my first approach to our house. Artificial light gave a creepy illumination to soot-covered snow and layers of ice. Strange people were stalking our property with uninvited determination. Our belongings were being haughtily thrown out of the door way and windows. I saw my grandpa’s chair leaning against the fence, completely charred and missing an arm, opposite leg, and half of its back. A clear casualty. The gravity of the situation hit me then.
The firemen were reluctant to spend too much time with us at that moment because they were still working inside. Men were in danger inside our home. We asked if there was any sign of our two cats. There hadn’t been, but we couldn’t believe the quick response they made to find them. Within minutes a fireman produced our shell shocked kitties and said he found them huddled together under our bed. We brought them to Jims & Sis thinking that the four would benefit from some mutual care.
When the all-clear was given, we could assess, but there was still chaos. (Talk about creating tension with black!) Someone shoved a business card in my hand and told us his crew would take care of everything. What? Crew? Who are you? “An emergency construction service. We’ll cover the broken windows and doors and come back and repair your house in the morning.” We seemed to have little choice in the matter. Things were completely out of our control.
My husband went inside to assess the damage, and when he came out, he reported that there was no way we could spend the night here. The fire was very localized as was the firemen’s inflicted but necessary damage, but the smoke damage was very significant and permeated the house. I wanted to see.
When I entered our house through the family room door in the back, with the flashlight, most everything in that room appeared untouched, but the stench was overwhelming and stinging. Nauseating. My slight fear was that I’d forgotten to unplug the iron and that it started this whole mess, but I found the iron on top of the ironing board with the cord and plug wound neatly just as I had apparently left it. (Phew) We found Sissy’s very best friend, a stuffed polar bear named Lacis sitting on the family room couch. She would later cry with relief and reluctantly acquiesce to giving him a bath later that night.
When the scene (and that’s really what it felt like: a dirty crime scene, not my home) shifted from the family room to the dining room and kitchen, I almost couldn’t look. A gaping hole had been hacked in the corner where the fire had originated exposed the outside. Icy water was everywhere; things that once hung proudly on the walls were littered all over the floor and covered in sludge; Winnie’s dining room set was not only amputated of my grandpa’s chair which was left out to die in the driveway, but also was veiled in the white film of water damage and huge gashes among countless lacerations. I moved on quickly to gather essentials in the bedrooms. Furniture in all the bedrooms had been tossed and closet contents flung wide in the firemen’s effort to find the cats. We grabbed my jewelry box, passports and birth certificates, filled a duffle bag with a few clothes, found Jims’ Tiger and fish blanket, and my husband moved his valuable map collection to our neighbor’s house for safe keeping. Beyond that, we could only hope that the contents of our lives wouldn’t be looted over night, and we left to spend the rest of the night at my in-laws.
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