FanStory.com - After the Fireby BethShelby

Backstory:

It has been a while since I added to my book. For those of you who are new to my book, Grasping the Elusive Dream, it a true story of my family living in New Orleans in the eighties; My husband, Evan and I have three children living at home. The twins, Don and Christi, haven't finished college, but they are taking a break and planning to return. Connie is 11. Evan has decided to retire as drafting supervisor from Chevron at 56. I was 47 and have been working for a printing company. We have an older daughter, Carol. She is a nurse, and she was married a few months before this takes place to Glen. They live in Valdosta, Georgia.

The family just experienced a fire which occured the day after Christmas. It was the result of Connie tossing a smoldering towel into her closet. This occurred when I was in the hospital for a D and C. I just repromoted the fire chapter and if you're interested in reading it, It is active under the name "When it Rain it Pours".

After two weeks, the five of us managed to get out of the single motel room and into a nearby house which the insurance covered while we rebuilt. For the most part, we were left to figure our own way out of this monumental dilemma. Since nothing like this had happened to us before, we were confused and working in the dark. Actually, it was literally as dark as a cave when we walked into our house. We entered with flashlights. Our shoes squished and sloshed on water-soaked carpet, compliments of the fire department’s attempt to save our house.

It was apparent the house would have to be totally gutted and rewired. We would also have to start from scratch purchasing new furnishing and clothing. It was really a blessing that we were both free from the working world, because what lay before us required so much time and planning. We had adequate insurance coverage on the contents, but to get it each item would have to be listed along with its condition, its value at purchase and the replacement value. It took me many days, but I turned in so many pages, it overwhelmed the adjuster. She said, “I’m not going through all of this. Give them the full amount.”

Since Don felt he’d learned quite a bit about construction, he wanted to be our contractor for rebuilding the house. We had to work with the insurance company and the bank to get permission, but they eventually agreed. We felt it would be a learning experience for him, should he decide to become a contractor. Each stage of the work would require passing inspection. He would have to hire the workers, electricians and painters as well as do a good portion of the work himself.

In addition to dealing with all this and purchasing everything we’d need to start over, we were dealing with a very traumatized eleven-year-old who knew she was responsible for causing our house to burn. Up till this point she had been very independent, wanting to spend every possible minute somewhere with friends and as far away from family as possible. Suddenly she had become clingy and didn’t want us out of her sight. She had lost every single gift she had gotten for Christmas. The thing that saved her from needing a therapist was the fact she was getting to shop for a whole new wardrobe.

Her trauma didn’t stop her from causing us even further damage. The driveway to the house we were leasing was steep and slanting down toward the street. One day as Connie waited in the car for me to take her shopping, she decided to see if she could drive. She started the car and threw it out of gear.

Horrified, I witnessed it roll backward as another car was coming into its path. They must have seen me frantically waving and realized what was happening. They quickly backed up and changed directions. The car kept rolling until it crashed into a parked car. Connie wasn’t hurt, but our car and the neighbors parked car were badly damaged. We couldn’t turn in an insurance claim with an eleven-year-old at the wheel, so this was another expense which we paid for from our own pocket.

After one shopping trip, I came home to find my husband glued to the television and thoroughly upset over having just witnessed the Challenger explode in mid-air. We had watched all the TV coverage of the first teacher planned trip into space and how it would be televised as her students watched. We had recently returned from a trip to Florida and a tour of the space facilities at Cape Canaveral where we saw the preparations for the launch. It was horrifying to know all those people died as America watched.

I won’t go into all the hassles we encountered over the following three months, but they were substantial and left all of us feeling drained. After the final inspection on the house, we moved back in to what looked like a new house with mostly new furnishing. We did have our piano and one bedroom set refinished and the bath and kitchen appliances from earlier were able to be cleaned and reused.

Shortly after we moved back in, Evan’s mother suffered a heart attack and died. She was eighty-five. She had always insisted that all of her children be with her for a big meal on every holiday. We had last been with her the day before our house burned. She lived in the same town in Mississippi as my parents so we were all there for the funeral. Evan was close to his mother so this was a hard time for him. Carol came from Georgia and we spent time with my parents as well.

The next big drama in our life involved Evan's desire to leave New Orleans now that he was no longer tied down by a job. When we first moved there in 1970, he’d hoped our stay would be no longer than a year. Life has a way of throwing curve balls; most likely my surprise pregnancy. We had lived there almost seventeen years. Except for Connie, who was born there, our other three had grown up there.
I had many good memories of the area, but I’d known it wouldn’t be our forever home. The question was where would we go from here.