Author: Heather Meadows

Sean said not too long ago that we were lucky that we weren’t living in Japan when the fire happened, because we wouldn’t have had a support structure to help us get back on our feet. I thought that was a ridiculous statement. If we’d been in Japan, the fire wouldn’t have happened to us at all–we didn’t cause it.

It occurred to me today that if we had been in Japan, the fire probably would have still happened, but to someone else. Would the people living in 09I have been home? Would they have awakened? Would one of them have thought to pull the fire alarm?

When we ran out front, there was a guy standing in the yard just staring at the building. I have no idea who he was or what he was doing there, but he hadn’t pulled the fire alarm. And no one else woke up until the alarm went off and the firemen started beating on doors.

The only casualty in the fire was a gerbil. If we’d been in Japan, would people have died?

This is about the only reason I can think of to be glad that we were there.

I’m on my laptop before work for the first time. Usually I watch TV in the mornings, but today Reid is asleep on the chair in the living room, so I’m back in what used to be Sean’s old bedroom and is now the workout room, my laptop sitting on the head of the treadmill. Well, it’s kind of like a desk.

Have you ever seen Return of the Jedi?

You know the part where the Ewoks start worshipping Threepio as a god?

The mini-fridge in here rumbles in exactly the same pitch progression and timing.

I was thinking just now about how I don’t really feel like going to work, and that reminded me of Shel Silverstein’s “Sick”. This in turn reminded me of The Light in the Attic, the collection of Silverstein’s poems that I gave to Sean while we were dating. I took the time to write in the front of the book why I was giving it to him and which poems meant something to me about my childhood.

That, too, is gone.

I get the feeling that I’m going to just keep thinking of things and listing them here. Maybe that’ll be the “scrapbook” that one commenter mentioned awhile back.

I guess that “delayed mourning” thing is really kicking in…I left the internship early today so I could be alone in the house for a change, and because I couldn’t concentrate and wasn’t getting anything done. Then I pretty much cried the whole way home.

I stopped at Springhouse. They wouldn’t let me into the apartment, of course. I don’t know what I was thinking. That I’d sneak in? I was told to talk to the apartment manager, so I did. She said they wouldn’t know if they could recover anything until the demolition guys evaluated the situation, and they don’t know when that’ll be because they haven’t even made an appointment with the demolition guys yet. She said they’d call. I don’t know if I trust them to do that, given their history.

I feel like I should try to resign myself to losing all my writing. It’s the writing that really got me, beyond even the pictures. I just want my hard drive. But if they can’t even, like, rake the debris out of the structure and let me sort through it…maybe I should just give up now and stop hoping.

I’m tired of these situations. I’m tired of life telling me to give up on my hopes.

I have a horrible headache right now. Earlier I felt like I was going to throw up. Now I just want to turn off my brain and hide from life.

That’s what I called it when Cheryl asked me what was wrong. It’s about the stupidest phrase ever, because it makes no sense.

“Mourning? Over what?”

“My apartment burned down,” I said. By this time I was struggling not to cry.

Cheryl launched into a speech about how nobody could do anything about that, and she wished she could but she couldn’t. All I could think was Duh, so you shouldn’t have pressed me about it. Why couldn’t you have just left me alone? But I just nodded and did my best not to start wailing in the middle of the stupid driveway. “Why today? What’s wrong?” she said.

“Yesterday they said that people couldn’t go in and get their stuff because it was too dangerous, and I’d been hoping my hard drive would be in there, and everything I’ve ever written was on it.” I was being brief because I was about to burst into tears, especially there towards the end.

“Nobody’s found anything?”

“I haven’t heard anything.”

“Cry, honey, just cry,” Cheryl said. I did not want to cry. She started saying the usual crap about letting it out. Well, that’s great and all, but I want to cry on my own terms. That’s why I was out in the middle of the driveway in the first place. I was trying to move stuff around, to exert control over my environment. I was trying to get rid of the clothes that people had donated that didn’t fit or weren’t quite our style. I had been going to put them in my car, and Cheryl had followed me outside because she’d meant one box for the Abilene Church. And then she’d just sunk her teeth into me until I was struggling to keep from collapsing.

I’m not the type to bawl in front of other people. I’ve done it, but I don’t choose to. I did not want to cry in front of Cheryl. There’s nothing wrong with her, and I love her, but I did not want to cry in front of her. But she kept telling me to.

“I’ll do it later,” I said. She finally backed down and we put the box of clothes in the garage. Then a neighbor appeared and I was able to escape.

I cried a little in the bathroom and in the guest bedroom, but it wasn’t enough. I just can’t cry here. It’s not my space.

Maybe sometime tomorrow I will drive off somewhere private and cry in my car.

So many people have been so generous to us. Thanks to the kindness of Sean’s parents in allowing us to stay with them, we are able to save the majority of our salaries, as well as all the money we’ve been given by our wonderful friends and families. This means that we should have enough money in a few months to get a place to live and replace most of the things we lost. It’s not perfect, but it’s far better than it could have been.

We currently have laptops and an Internet connection, and some of our friends have ordered replacement goodies from the Amazon list. We’re planning to get me a new bicycle at the end of the month. Several people have offered us furniture, and many of them are able to hold on to the pieces until we get a place to live. At this point, due to kind donations and gift cards, we no longer have need of clothes.

If there’s anyone out there who still wants to help in some way (though I really can’t imagine that–we’ve already been given so much), money is probably the best option at this point, because it takes up the least amount of space. However, I still feel funny asking people for money, so the other thing you can do is just wait until we get a house and then buy something from the Amazon list.

We want to thank everyone who has given us gifts. You’ve helped us more than we could ever express. We have just been overwhelmed by the amazing outpouring of love and generosity. Thank you all so much.