It’s been ten years now since my family’s house burned down. 10 years. My family’s house fire has been a part of my testimony since then. It’s a story I’ve told more times than I can count. What I’ve noticed the more and more I tell the story, is that I tend to wave it off like it was no big deal. I have a tendency to oversimplify things and pretend like everything is okay. Now yes, in hindsight I look at it from a different perspective considering all that has happened since. Yet, I was thinking about how when I wave it off like it’s no big deal, in a way I’m not acknowledging the faithfulness of the Lord in that hard time. And let me tell ya, the Lord was so faithful! So, in honor of the ten-year anniversary of my family’s house fire, I want to tell you the story, from my perspective of course, as real and vulnerable as I can.
October 9, 2009. I never knew I would ever remember a day in such great detail. When I woke up that morning it was just another Friday. But looking back ten years later I remember almost everything I did. That evening, the girls in my 7th & 8th grade class were having a pizza party with all of our moms. I remember before my mom and I left standing at the top of the stairs and feeling extreme heat. My dad was working in our basement taking out a wall. All the wood he took out he was just burning in our wood-burning stove in the basement. While it was hotter than I had ever experienced, I didn’t think much of it at the time.
My mom and I arrived at the pizza party, set our stuff in the front entry, and went to mingle with my friends and their moms. After everyone arrived, we played some games and then eventually sat down to eat pizza. I was sitting at a table with three of my classmates when I noticed the hostess rush to my mom with the phone saying “Sue, it’s Kevin.” I could tell something was wrong by the tone of her voice. I turned to my friends and explained what my dad had been doing. My first thought – my dad broke his leg. I know, you can laugh. It’s funny to me that that’s what I thought at first. I listened to my mom trying to calm my dad down and I heard her say that we would be right there. When she hung up, she looked over at me and said, “Alyssa get your stuff. Our house is on fire.”
Okay, I’ll admit. Even as I type those words, I feel tears in my eyes. It’s one of those moments you can never forget. The moments to follow I also remember vividly. I turned to my friends and repeated those last five words. Our house is on fire. I jumped from my seat, ran to the front, grabbed my stuff, and rushed out the door, tears streaming down my face. I was waiting by our van while I saw the hostess hug my mom right before she came out. Before my mom could even start the van, I pestered her with questions. What happened? Is everyone okay? What about the animals? How did it start? Every question my mom took with grace and quietly answered, “I don’t know, Alyssa.”
The 30-minute drive home was fairly silent. Occasionally I’d ask my mom more questions, but all she knew was that everyone was out. I just prayed and prayed. AT one point, I saw a small dark cloud of smoke on the horizon. I asked my mom if that was the house, but the question didn’t even fully come out because I already knew the answer. As we neared our exit I began to shake. I couldn’t get myself under control and the closer and closer we got the more and more I shook. I told my mom at one point that all I wanted was my family and the rest was the Lord’s. When we finally got close to our house, we had to park down the street as it was blocked off. As we walked down, I squeezed my mom’s hand and told her not to let go. My heart was racing. By the time we got to the house, I had counted 12 fire engines, an ambulance, and several police cars. I saw my older sister first, sitting in our neighbor’s yard across the street. I ran to her. And then I saw it. My home engulfed in flames. I screamed and fell to the ground, my sister just holding me.
The rest of the night is honestly kind of a blur. It’s one part of the day where I don’t remember many the details. But there are still many things I do remember. I remember seeing my brother just staring at the house with tears in his eyes. I remember hearing that the firemen found one of our cats we thought we lost. I remember hugging my dad and crying together. I remember seeing many people from our church who had come to be there for us. I even remember later that night making a joke about the house at one point just trying to lighten the mood, because that’s who I am. And I remember our old-time friends coming to pick me and my sisters up and take us home with them.
That drive to our friends’ house felt like eternity. It hit me then that my only possessions were the clothes I had on. I tried to rest, but my mind was racing. So many questions. So many unknowns. When we got to our friends’ home, I’ll never forget standing in their kitchen when their dad said, “What’s ours is yours.” We have been friends with this family for 21 years now. They’re practically my second family. Their home already felt like a second home, yet something about what he said really hit me deep. I knew then that everything was going to be okay.
I didn’t sleep much that night. Every time I closed my eyes the events from that night just replayed over and over again in my head. So I just laid there with my eyes open trying to get my mind off of it, until I eventually fell asleep.
While that night seems like the main part of the story, it really was just the beginning. For a week, my sisters and I lived with our friends. They did everything for us. They took us to the store to buy more clothes. They fed us. They took us to school. At one point their entire family room was filled with tons of clothes people had donated to us. I can’t begin to imagine getting through this hard time without them.
After a week of living with them, we moved in with the rest of our family into a hotel, where we stayed for a few more weeks. Yes, I actually lived in a hotel, which was pretty fun at age 12. Just over 3 weeks after the fire we moved into a rental house. Even though it definitely wasn’t home, I was so excited to have our own house again. The following June we began construction on our new house on the same property where the fire house was. And just nine months later we moved in.
That year and a half was far from easy. There always seemed to be tension in our house. We all were working through the events in our own ways. I know my brothers struggled with nightmares for a while. My parents were stressed with all things insurance and building the new house. Not to mention, my little sister and I shared a room for the first time. If you knew us back then, you know that we did not get a long…at all. We were constantly fighting or bickering and finding space from each other was hard. I began to not care about school. I fell behind and slacked on everything, and I even cheated a time or two. Not my proudest moments.
But not all things were bad. Our family has always been really close, but I believe that the fire brought us even closer. I learned at a young age how our worldly possessions really don’t mean much. Since we did a lot of the construction of our new house on our own, I learned a lot of skills that I never knew would come in handy. Yet, several times this last summer and even my summer in Chicago, my experience and knowledge helped.
I remember not long after the fire happened, thinking about how much more I believed in God. I had seen Him in the way people had donated things to us within the first 24 hours. I had seen Him in the way people would come to the house to help us try and salvage some of our belongings. Trust me, picking through the house was not a fun thing. It was dirty and wet and it smelled awful. Yet people still came to help. I saw Him in the way people sent us letters telling us they were praying for us. I saw Him in the way that He provided day in and day out what we needed. He was faithful. He is faithful. That period in my life wasn’t easy. I often try and only remember the good things, but when I think about those hard times, like the really hard times, I remember His goodness and faithfulness and kindness in it all.
October 9th will always be a special day for my family. But it’s not necessarily a solemn day. It’s a day of remembrance and even celebration. We celebrate all the Lord has done for us and how He provided in those challenging times. And the great part of His faithfulness is that it never ends. We know that He will continue to be faithful in our lives for the next 10+ years.
