Smoke and the Suite Life

We woke up the next morning thinking it was all a bad dream, but the musty burning smell of smoke followed us everywhere. The guest room at my in-laws where we slept smelled like it, the kid’s pajamas smelled like it, the inside of our cars smelled like it, and even the cats smelled like it. The effects of the fire reached every tiny corner of our lives and I couldn't wash it off my hands.

The next few days were, of course, a crazy blur of activity and it was hard to know who to trust. There are protocols to these things, but when your house doesn’t catch fire every day, it’s a steep learning curve! We thanked God for our wonderful insurance agents on an hourly basis. They were a speed dial on my phone for a year after all this.

The fire department and insurance company launched investigations. Interestingly, the source of the fire was found, but the cause was never determined. The fire department closed the case and the insurance company opened one. With that, they approved restoration companies to take care of our belongings. I’ll never forget the little grandma-lady who showed up the next morning with such authority. She took my hands, apologized for my loss, asked about my kids, and then looked directly into my eyes and said, “I’m going to take your house, turn it upside down and shake it. Every little scrap that falls out I am going to label, pack up, clean, repair and store it for you until your house is ready to move back in. Then I’m going to unpack and arrange it exactly the way you want. Everything will be catalogued and returned like new, I promise.” This seemed like an incredible task, but that’s exactly what she and her team did over the next three days from the biggest piece of furniture to the lost pennies and paperclips found within the cushions. Another company took everything made of fabric—clothing, linens, towels, mattresses, sleeping bags, etc.They told us to put a weeks worth of clothing into special duffle bags and they would have them back to us clean and restored in a few days. They even offered to take the winter coats of our backs (they really smelled). The rest would be ready in few weeks and stored until we were ready to take delivery.  Everyone promised that the stinging smell of smoke would be fullly removed from everything as they hauled it all away in a mountain of carefully labeled and numbered boxes. (By the way, five years later, I’m still clipping the yellow paper tags off the odd table cloth or rarely worn blouse, and peeling the identifying sticker off a serving bowl or picture frame.)

Not only did we need to oversee this incredible task of clean up and move out, but we had to find a place to live. Staying with my inlaws was certainly helpful in the immediate short term, but they didn’t have room for us to live there for any length of time. We needed our own space anyway. The insurance company again was wonderful and just told us to find whatever we needed, a long term hotel, apartment, or whatever, and it would be paid for. That was relieving, but still not easy. We looked at extended stay hotels and apartment complexes with short term leases. None of these things suited our family, and few of them would allow our kitty cats. Then we found the “Suite Life,” a small, very clean apartment complex in Royal Oak, across from the high school, that offered fully furnished apartments available for short term lease. They were marketed for month-to-month corporate use. Not only was this logistically convenient, but they had a two bedroom apartment available, a laundry facility, an in-ground pool that would be opened in the spring, and no problem with our kids or cats. The apartment was completely stocked with bedding, blankets, pots, pans, dishes, gadgets, towels and even a vacuum cleaner--Eureka. I just hoped we wouldn't stink it up.  We signed the lease and paid the first and last month’s rent on Friday night, two days after the fire.

The next day, March 5, marked our 11th wedding anniversary. Grandma and Grandpa kept the kids while my husband and I moved our very few belongings to the Suite Life--we were back to 100 lbs. of home. Then we did something we hadn't done together in years: we went grocery shopping. It was fun, but also pretty obscene. We had to buy everything from toilet paper to salt. The Suite Life had no consumables. After filling three huge carts, we brought everything into the apartment by passing it through a window to save us from hiking back and forth through the parking lot and around the complex. It was comical, but felt good to have some control again.

When it was all put away, we went out for dinner. We drank to our 11 years, our very recent blessing of safety, our resilient kids, and yet another adventure together. Sitting in that restaurant, exhausted, but able to exhale for the first time in three days, we figured that if we could get through this, we could get through anything.  (As if we'd never done anything hard before.) At that I wiped a tear from my eye, but I could still smell the smoke.
 

The Scene

Girard Avenue was covered in thick ice and flashing lights when I pulled up 20 minutes later, a drive I only remember as white-knuckled and fast, trying not to show panic to my kids. My husband had arrived just ahead of me. We deposited two very nervous kids into the warm and calm arms of Laura and her husband. Laura said that she saw thick, black smoke coming from the soffits of our family room. After calling the fire department (immediately before calling me), she learned that neighbors on the street behind us, more than 350 feet away, had already reported the billowing smoke coming from our house.

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.

 

Routine at Stake

 We were waiting for building permits to be approved and for our contractor to wrap up another job before we could get to work on our addition. March 2, 2005 was a Wednesday. As per Routine, we spent Wednesday evenings at church for dinner and family activities. Routine dictated that I took the kids and that my husband met us there directly after work. He hadn’t yet arrived that evening at about 6:30 pm when I got the call.

My next door neighbor and friend, Laura, knew our Routine, so I thought it strange to see her name pop up on the caller ID of my mobile phone. I answered her with a friendly chirp, although it was hard to hear because of all the activity going on around me. She sounded a bit strained and asked if we were at church. Yes. She asked if the kids and my husband were there with me. I explained. Then with very calm and deliberate words, Laura delivered this:

Come home now. Your house is on fire.

Routine was being burned alive.

Build Up

Our life on Girard Avenue was about three years old when we decided it was time to think about putting on an addition, and the plan was ambitious. We wanted to build up and put a second floor on top of Girard’s walls. Routine was about to take a sabbatical, thank the Lord. We sketched and scaled and came up with a plan to add two big bedrooms, a loft area, a kid bathroom and a mechanical room that would not only house the furnace, hot water heater and laundry, but also another full bathroom. It would add about another 1000 square feet.

As soon as the new 2005 got underway, we started interviewing building contractors and found one who not only shared our vision, but had architectural plans drawn up to prove it. We intended to live in the house as the addition was being built, and the prospect of the whole process was exciting. We were reliving something here, and this time, we felt it would be for keeps. So we had a good and planned adventure on our hands! Or so we thought.

Meet Routine

  In the next few years, obviously the Girard house conformed to fit our family. And I wasn’t the only one with projects. My husband built a cool tree house for Jims in the willow with rope rails and a bird’s nest which became a pirate ship, a space ship, an alien planet, and a dreaming place. There was a shed in the middle of the yard, too, which we decided to turn into a play house for Sissy. With Grandpa’s help, they dragged it from one end of the yard to the other, dug a trench from the garage to pull electricity to it, sided it with new T1-11, built a front porch and a Dutch door, and I painted it blue—like our Jaunmarupe house. Inside they laid vinyl flooring and installed tiny double-hung windows. I made frilly curtains in pink and green and we put all the little kitchen furniture and plastic steak and eggs inside. We made ice rinks and had soccer teams practice in the back yard.


Not long after all of that, my husband decided it was time for more space and that it should start in the garage. With little effort and expense, we contracted to add 12’ to the back end of our deep 2-car garage. This allowed room for a work bench and tool chests along with a new “freezer room.” Before the addition, the garage had a little room framed inside with a sliding glass door and indoor-outdoor carpeting. We ended up putting a big chest freezer in there along with items we were storing that we didn’t want exposed to the otherwise dirty elements of the garage. Since our house didn’t have a basement, this clean storage was handy, so we made sure we rebuilt this space with the addition. Even though it was a garage, the extra room was luxurious.

We did all the things one would expect. My husband started graduate school, the kids were involved with school, sports and lessons, and I was heavily obligated (with enjoyment) to church activities. Busyness abounded. We finally had reached that state of un-flux. I was convinced that this kind of consistency was surely the key to building a happy, stable family. No more waiting for the other shoe to drop. No more chasing. It was clean living at its best, for sure, and we had what we wanted and worked so long to attain. So there was no explanation for my restlessness at night. I would try to conjure sleep by praying for forgiveness for wanting more than what had generously been given. I had an ache for richer, not in an ungrateful way, but in an unsatisfied way. This is utopia?

I’ve written a lot about tension. How a little is necessary and too much is chaotic. How for me, the tension of static we always seemed to find ourselves in was usually relieved by cooperating through it, and how that cooperation usually involved a major move or decision which required a great deal of planning. That was the reliable rhythm. It made me feel the most productive, and ironically, I found comfort in it. However, it had been made clear that only a girl with pretty big, selfish issues and unrealistic expectations could be left unfulfilled with the life we’d been given. Routine wasn’t my friend, but I when I would fall asleep night after night in that willowy room that I made up, I begged her to be.

Project Girl

 At this point, I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m not good at sitting still for very long. If nothing else, I’d never before had that luxury, but here in Royal Oak, that notion of being “settled,” or having “arrived,” or “resting” was becoming a reality. My husband saw almost immediate success and was deemed valuable to his new company, which offers a great deal of security, but also, the kids were making friends, enjoying new kinds of freedom, and we had a wonderful and growing network of family and friends nearby. Two years in the virtual holding pattern marked in Evanston went by in a flash, yet to say we recently moved back from the Former Soviet Union seemed somehow inaccurate now. Regardless, we now had what we wanted: a home that was our own, a community we were enjoying, and no more excuses to not be happy and fulfilled. Strange.

Over time I took on little projects in the Girard house. One night I decided to repaint the small kitchen. I took advantage of others’ mistakes and bought returned gallons at Home Depot for half price. I mixed a new color for the walls which enlivened things immediately, but made the painted cabinets look shabby. So I mixed again and repainted those, too. I came up with a light-value, murky green for the walls and a fresh but very muted yellow for the old cabinets. It all played with all the cobalt blue I had sitting around in canisters, dishes, and little vases.

Then, it didn’t take a year before our bedroom carpet was getting to me. It was a creamy-colored cut pile, but it felt rough and itchy under my bare feet even after being cleaned several times. I thought it smelled, too. So I pulled it up to find almost perfect hardwood underneath. After that, a little inspiration hit and I decided to completely redecorate. The walls and closet doors became a willowy green with the textured ceiling (which I loathed) just a shade lighter. I painted the trim in the palest color on the paint chip and the whole room was instantly bathed in the light you’d find sitting under our own willow tree outside the window. I found a long fallen branch in the yard that was about 3” in diameter, stripped the bark, cut it into two and made curtain rods over which I draped cotton fabric with a tight tone-on-tone pattern in a wheaty-beige. I also had wooden blinds made that matched the wood in our furniture. For over our bed, I had blown up to a large poster an old photo my husband had taken of an icy Latvian lake with stark, frozen trees and a few chilly birds flying by. New tawny, wooly flokati rugs balanced the cold in the picture and felt sumptuous underfoot. That room became a very comfortable success.

I mixed more leftover paint for the dining room and came up with a beautiful goldenrod color. It was the perfect backdrop for Winnie’s dining room set. When I reupholstered her chairs with a luscious material of deep raspberry dotted with golden dragonflies, I found several layers of past seat patterns underneath the faded fabric. With an obligatory yet joyful nod to posterity, I cut swatches from each remnant, replaced disintegrating foam and pad, and laid the swatches carefully on top before stretching the dragonflies over and reattaching the seats to the chairs. Winnie was with me that day!

It was fun busying myself with these little tasks in the house. For a while, every time my husband would come home from work or the kids home from school, I had another project going. Project Girl became my name, and sometimes not so affectionately, but it was fun to play, enrich, refurbish, and mark my territory. I wanted to create this environment that would unmistakably feel like our dwelling place, safe place, refuge, founding place, and source. If our environment evoked all of this, surely it would be a true reflection.

Some Permanence

  After all our previous practice, it took no time to move in and commit to our new home. There were many things I wanted to do to make the house more our own, but nothing needed to be done urgently, so we were content to take some time getting to know this house and live together as a family again. With maps, paintings and other objects hung on walls, furniture arranged, drawers, closets and cupboards filled, we declared some permanence finally.