“I just got out alive; I jumped out the window.” my son in law probably made this call from the backyard, after he jumped out of the window and before his neighbors broke down the back fence, so he could escape. The fire was so hot; there was no place to go. He escaped from a fire that every fireman has said, “He should not be alive.” There was a tremendous heat as the fire from the roof kissed and then gobbled up the backyard pine trees. The same trees that held the hammock that my daughter posed in smiling content that her house was as at a stage where they had everything they needed and wanted. She posted this hammock picture of her and my granddaughter on Instagram just a few days before the fire.
My home is only 25 minutes from my daughter’s, but on that afternoon it felt like miles away as I rushed to the scene. My daughter was not in the fire but collapsed in front as she watched her life go up in smoke and flames, started by a candle that she lit and forgot. The trauma of that moment has haunted her and will haunt her for the rest of her life. She did not know where her husband was. She had just left him sleeping in the house because he worked nights and had taken sinus medicine. She was gone for less than 15 minutes as she went to pick up my three-year-old granddaughter. In 15 minutes my daughter lost everything. Everything but the clothes on their back, and for my son- in law, the clothes on his back were just his underwear.
Much has happened in these few months. My kids moved in with me and back to our hood. It felt comfortable and my daughter now 32 was brought home as a baby to this house. It was familiar, nurturing, a home when all that felt like home was lost. Even though the insurance company provided a rented house in their neighborhood, they could not leave. Both suffered shock, and relapses and flashbacks. They have taken baby steps to recover, and we have held each other often in tears. Telling each other, “You can do this, remember together we are stronger than fire.”
I could tell you story after story of things that happened in the last few months, which occurred with either individuals or in the fire, that would cause you to renew your faith in humanity and be sure that there was a God. I still can’t believe some of them myself. But what has caused my heart to bursting with appreciation and excitement is the pouring out of love, assistance, and warmth we have received from so many people. I posted on social media about this tragedy and from time to time would post an immediate need, and within moments it was met.
We tried to furnish their rent house, which for a very long time was just a shell or a resting place. It was there should they need it in-between dropping my granddaughter off for school. They were not sleeping there because, up to a few days ago, my kids could not leave the comfort of this area, and my home. Everyone, including myself, was having extreme separation anxiety, no one wants to be without the other. Slowly, we began to replace rented furniture with donated furniture. I was delighted the day I could bring shelves to their house so my granddaughter would have a place to store the many many books that people had replaced. The three-year-old has a more significant book collection than myself. Reading is important in our lives, and my three-year-old granddaughter’s library that she has had in her three years of being contained over 700 books. I know because I went into the burned house, donned with a respirator and pulled what was left of the books and took pictures of them. Now new books, sit on a shelf in a rented room, placed by tiny hands. Thank you.
I’m always reminded, over the last several weeks, of all of this innocent child’s things that were “broken.” The donated shelf that now sits in my granddaughter’s room holding her precious books is similar to the one that my mother gave me, and that my granddaughter’s best friend has in his house. We are finding emotional connections to things provided and placed in a shell that the kids are trying to call home until their home is torn down and rebuilt. The emotion is hard; there is just a void.
Some items donated and connections from this area also have this very strange spiritual thing about them. One night my daughter tells me she would like a bunk bed for my granddaughter when they can afford it. She describes it as a big bed on the bottom and a small on the top, and I try to picture it in my mind. The next morning there is a PM in my Facebook inbox. The owners of my dance studio, an incredible place where I often help with Salsa and Bachata classes, saw my post and wondered if I would like a children’s bedroom set. She sent a picture and yes… it was just like my daughter had indicated. I cried, knowing how God was working through those in our neighborhood to answer even the unspoken wants of my kids. Thank you.
Even local companies have come to my kid’s aid. My daughter was elated when Joybird Houston recreated the couch that the kids purchased just a few months before the fire. They delivered it last week. This act of kindness has gone a long way to healing a weary but hopeful heart.
We have had people come with food, someone donated hiking shoes complete with little notes stuck in them from their children, and individuals have dropped by from the neighborhood and brought toys for my granddaughter, a crate for the new puppy, and always coming to aid for the furniture. Some neighbors even helped my daughter, and I dig plants from their yard, and power washes my granddaughter’s outside toys. I’m surprised with all of the outpouring. I have loved my neighborhood for many, many years.
Breathing in friends new and old and caring.
Pusche