2 months ago

I'm sitting in this dimly lit bedroom and it's almost 10 in the morning. I can hear my dad in the bathroom a few feet away-- he's drilling holes in the wall and hanging up a cabinet above the toilet. yesterday he hung the new towel rack and shower curtain. the day before that he painted the bathroom brown. last weekend he laid wood floor in sisters bedroom and the weekend before that he painted her room white. and yesterday was 60 days since the fire.

i know awhile ago i wrote this and didn't say much about what happened. so now i'm trying to "talk about how i feel" we had a fire in our attic 61 days ago. it was "small" and was contained by 7 firetrucks and 50 firemen at 1 in the morning on september 11th. we were safe, our dogs were safe, our bibles were safe, our laptops were safe (our house was not). and yet our hearts sorta broke. i cant seem to explain to anyone what it feels like to go through the aftermath of a fire. it's devastating. you think that you're strong and that resilience will magically appear and you will maintain joy but it doesn't always work that way. you think that you can look at all that happened and smile and say "The Lord is Good" but that doesn't always happen either. as much as i wished for that it didn't happen that way. we've gone through the normal stages of grief. we've cried and been scared and yelled and thrown up and sat silently and then slowly we've moved on. we've shared our story with those that are willing to listen (it's amazing how few people are willing to listen) we've been bitter (guilty) and been at peace. and now we have rebuilt.

i feel like today is the first day in 61 days that are house looks normal. it still amazes me that the "look" of something can so greatly impact our attitude. how having paint on the walls can heal the heartbreak of not having walls at all. how a light in my bedroom can heal the memory of walking through our house with a flashlight and seeing all that was destroyed. we're still healing. each morning. we're slowly hanging up cabinets and painting walls. we're slowly talking about how we feel and letting go of what happened.
we're moving on. and moving toward normalcy. slow and steady.
and i think that soon our joy will return.

thanks for listening. you're one of the few ; )