Yesterday morning I was on edge and irritable and woke up with a feeling in the pit of my stomach - the one I can't describe but my sister knows what I mean when I say I have that "pit in the stomach feeling" - like something was wrong or about to be wrong. I hadn't been paying that much attention to the date, but it was July 1st and some part of my brain knew it; seven years ago on July 1st we had a housefire and I guess I have some lingering PTSD about it all.
I never would have imagined how completely and totally a housefire would change my life or the life of my kids, or even, tangentially, the life of my family. When I see stories on the news or hear about people who have lost their house, I want to throw up. If I smell smoke or see people with candles lit in their house, I have a fight or flight moment and I have a reputation for blowing out candles in people's bathrooms, or at their parties.
We were very lucky in the case of our house fire on July 1st, 2004. We lost our poor cat Kelsey, and I cry about her and the way she died often. I know she was old and starting to get sick, but she suffered when she died, and I hate that. My kids and I had taken our dogs to a friend's house for a puppy playdate; Fenway was a puppy and my friend had just gotten a puppy so she invited us over to give our new babies a social opportunity. Fenway saved Jonah's life that day - it was over 90 degrees and humid and I was going to leave Jonah, an aging Shepherd mix who didn't love the heat, home and just take Fenway. But Fenway wouldn't get in the van without Jonah and we were running late so eventually I just decided to take them both and let Jonah rest in the shade. Fenway has issues and I don't love owning a dog I don't trust 100%, but I will always be grateful that because of her, Jonah wasn't home. If I had lost Jonah in the fire I'd have needed serious mental rehabilitation - the feelings that my family had toward that dog bordered on the psychotic when it came to protectiveness.
We lost everything we owned. I have heard people say that, but until I walked through my house with a fireman, looking for important documnents to try to save, or see if there was anything worth pulling out of the soaking wet, smoke filled mess that had been my house, I never truly understood it. I had nothing to wear, my kids didn't have a toy or a game or a tv. We had no food, no pictures, none of my scrapbook stuff, no diapers and no where to sleep. Sadly, we also had no cat. Luckily we hadn't been home, no one was hurt (well, one neighbor got burned trying to turn our outdoor hose, and the water was close to boiling. Not sure how she planned to fight the fire with a garden hose but it was nice of her to try...) and we had homeowner's insurance.
We stayed with my parents for awhile, a hotel for months and months and months, and then when our insurance company decided the house should be ready (it wasn't) and we had been at the hotel long enough (according the them) we moved back into my parents house. I had two dogs, and one was a teething puppy, two young kids, and it was easily the most depressing year of my life. Right after the fire I remember being in the hotel, trying to drag kids, dogs and groceries up two flights of stairs and thinking that I really couldn't handle it. The second bedroom was an open loft, so anytime Ari was sleeping or napping, we had to sneak around and be quiet and hole up in the bedroom. Halle watched so much TV while we lived there that I can't believe she's not brain damaged. I remember watching the 2004 World Series and cheering silently while jumping around like idiots when the Red Sox won. Cheering silently so I wouldn't wake the kids, but the hotel was directly on Route 1 and every car out there started blaring the horn at once, so it was obviously an unneccessary precaution on my part.
For months afterward I carried around clothes and diapers and some old toys of my kids in our van. It made no sense logically, but it made me feel so much better. I learned that I had a truly wonderful group of friends - we would come back to the hotel after being out for the morning and the message light on the phone would blink, we'd call to find we had a package waiting for us at the desk. People left toys and clothes for the kids, gift cards so we could shop, household items they thought we'd need, etc. My friends had a "shower" for us before we moved back home, and my playground got together and got us some new stuff. The people at the hotel gave the kid's Christmas gifts right before we left - we had gotten to know them well. The kindness of strangers can be an eye opening experience.
Yesterday the kids and I had a fabulous day at Water Country - the weather was perfect, there were no lines for reasons I can't quite figure out, and the water rides were so much fun. If I had remembered to bring a book, I could have read for hours while the kids bobbed around in the wave pool. I didn't remember that it was the first of July until almost 6:00 pm, when we came home and I had a flash of panic that our road would be closed and there would be police and fire trucks out front. It wasn't, and there weren't.
