Four years ago we lost everything to a house fire.
It has been four years since we lost everything in a house fire. Four years ago… I remember it like it was yesterday… And two years ago I wrote this blog about it.
A bit of an emotional one today–
There are so many reasons why I decided I want to write this blog. Hopefully to one day turn it into a book, to let you all in on my story, to teach you about the people and places of the world, this is so therapeutic for me, and to help people.
Today will be a bit different. It has been a year and a half since we lost everything in our home to a fire. Crazy enough, someone very dear to me is dealing with the same thing right now. I know right. So as much as this is therapeutic for me I really want to help her.
I wrote this next bit right after the house burned down. All very real and raw emotions.
I knew that morning that something was wrong. I kept thinking, “Did mom leave enough water for them? What if Dunkin knocked over the dish again as he always did. What if he knocked it over and got a socket wet. There are Christmas lights up. What if he chewed on a Christmas light?” All of these questions were flowing through my head. I could feel something was wrong. I saw that a number from my hometown called. But I didn’t have service yet until I go up to deck 6 by the theatre. So I spent my morning the usual way. I got ready and headed to the theatre to sit with the Production Manager in the office and have my morning espresso with him. After my espresso I walked up to deck six. It’s my same routine everyday. I then turn my phone on and message after message starts rolling through. My friend Mike was there and trying to talk to me but my coffee hadn’t kicked in quite yet and I like to check my phone when I first get service for the day. Today was a different kind of day. The messages were coming in so fast that I couldn’t keep up with them. One after another from my mom, then my brother, then my sister in law and my sister.
“Got a call my house was on fire.. plenty of smoke damage.. trying to fly back home”-Mom
At first I was just skimming through the messages. I saw it and kind of nudged it off. It’s weird to think that my mom and I had the exact same first thought. –Well I hope the cats didn’t run away when the fire men opened the door.– It didn’t even cross my mind how bad it could have actually been. The messages kept coming through.
“Omg Denise, are all the animals out of the house?” — My sister in law Denise sent this to my mom, which I think after reading smoke damage that is the first thing you think of.
“The two cats are there, not sure what the status is.” My mom always leaves Dunkin and Bunker in the house when she goes away with enough food and water.
The group messages kept coming in. My Dad was the first to ask if my mom needed him to drive the 7 hour drive from New York to New Hampshire to see what was really going on. My mother was in Colorado so it would be a while till she made it back. My Brother in law is a volunteer fire fighter. He ended up calling the fire department at home and asking what really happened. He told my family they all needed to go be with my mom in NH. So, my entire family started getting to the airport and in their cars to travel through a blizzard to get to the house and be with my mom.
The next message was where I broke down.
“The police called. Dunkin and Bunker are dead”…
“No” No.. no.. no.. no.. the only response I had in my head was no. No other words could come out. I didn’t think it was that bad. I didn’t understand what smoke damage could do. And nothing like this has ever hit so close to home. You hear about houses in your town or on the news once in a while, but never a friend, never a family member, and certainly never does this kind of traumatic experience happen to you.
I broke down. I burst into tears. I couldn’t stop crying. I could barely even breath. I felt so helpless. How did this happen. I went through so many emotions in a matter of the first 10 minutes. Sadness, Anger, Guilt, Confusion, Denial… I couldn’t believe it.
“I have to go home, I need to go home.. Just please I have to be home right now.” One of the hardest things about working on a cruise ship. You can’t just get up and leave when you need to. There is paperwork that needs to be filled out, a whole sign off process. And in my case as a dancer, someone needs to learn my tracks for the shows and a whole re-block has to be done.
So that is how it began. I lost it. I couldn’t stop crying. I still had to work though. I actually had to perform in a “Mystery Theatre Dinner” that night. I played Sally Say So- The ditz. You have no idea how hard it was to still do your job and make people laugh when your heart has literally just shattered. Each time we went back into the room between acts I would break down. Completely. Like I did that morning. Breathless.
I wanted to be there. I wanted to save my cats. My animals are everything to me. Yes, I am one of those people that loves animals more than she loves humans. So when people said “at least it was only your cats”, while trying to help, it didn’t. When someone is going through something so tragic… My suggestion is to let them go through it. Let them cry and scream and hurt and feel the pain they need to feel. Be there for them. Don’t tell them it could be worse. Never ever do that. Because in that moment, in that tragedy, absolutely nothing could be worse. You, telling them, “it could have been worse”, makes you seem very insensitive to what happened.
I felt hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. I still say that and my heart sinks into my stomach. I was on a cruise ship in the Caribbean.. December 29, 2016. Right after Christmas and right before New Years. I couldn’t go anywhere. I was stuck. My heart was broken and I was stuck slapping a smile on my face for people that paid to get the vacation of a life time. I had to wear sunglasses (Thank you Victor) during a 70’s disco party the next night because I couldn’t stop crying. I was told I could leave but I mean I needed to push through. I think that’s why I stayed. I didn’t want people to think I couldn’t be professional. But, let’s be real here, I was a mess. A complete mess. With all the bells and whistles of getting really sick, tears always streaming down my face, feeling useless, drinking a lot and just having my brain somewhere else.
Every time I called someone in the family we would just cry. The pain that was felt was unlike anything I have felt before. I was so angry. I had so much sorrow.
I went home January 2nd. My dance captain paid for my flight… I was so unstable that I couldn’t process getting a flight or when I needed to leave or come back. He called me one night and asked for me to come to the hallway. And there he was standing with my flight information in his hand. A one way ticket to Boston. When you sign off on compassion during a contract you are given two weeks. I wasn’t sure if I was going to leave for one or two cruises at this point. I cried again. There were so many tears. During something so difficult the best things you can do for someone is help in an area to ease the stress they are feeling. I couldn’t focus. So he did what he could do to help ease my pain a little bit. I could never thank him enough for that.
While my family was there they stayed in a hotel about 10 minutes from the house. They all went to see it together for the first time. The photos I received from them were unlike anything you could imagine. The house didn’t completely burn to the ground. The best way I can explain it is that it looked like an underwater ship wreck. Black, everything was black. There were Christmas decorations up that were melted. Ornaments that we had had since we were babies that were melted or completely ruined with soot. Curtains that had burned up and you only saw the rod. The fruit on the counter looked like it was plastic and painted with black paint on top. You couldn’t see out of the windows because it was black. My family told me and showed me how bad it was but I needed to come at peace with it myself and see it for myself.
Packing my bags I realized.. I don’t have any winter clothes. It was the dead of winter in New Hampshire. I was in the Caribbean. I may have had a few things for colder weather. But not enough. One of my very best friends in the cast was lending me really warm socks and a scarf and long sleeve shirts to bring home with me. My best friend Mike picked me up from the airport and we stopped at the mall so I could buy a winter jacket. These things you don’t even realize you need, until you don’t have them anymore.
I sat in the airport early in the morning after signing off while watching a black bird roaming inside of the airport. He sat on the chair next to me while I was having a vanilla latte and eating my breakfast sandwich.
I have read somewhere that black birds symbolize souls crossing over..
I know what I felt in that moment with that black bird..
Do you ever have that? Where you see something or feel something and you know it’s a sign from someone or something from the other side, or heaven, or the Universe… Whatever it is you believe in..
I do..
Sigh..
The power strip caught on fire. It was over loaded and it caught fire. It was in the living room where the TV was. I still think about what I would do to turn back time. The entire unit where the TV was fell through to the basement. Fire and smoke for hours. The fire men said the smoke was up to the top of their legs by the time they got in there.
Walking into the house for the first time…
I didn’t cry.
I was in shock. I froze. Just standing there thinking, “is this really our home?” My heart was shattered but I was so numb at the same time. The “Life isn’t fair”– devastation and thought process kicked in.
It was January, in New Hampshire. No heat. Darkness. Standing there in these white suits, gloves and face masks. Everything was black, so much soot, ashes… You had to walk in with that mask on so that you could breath. It was still smoky inside. You couldn’t open the windows. You couldn’t open the fridge. You had to wear gloves. You would touch something and then wipe your runny nose and there you stood with ashes on your face. My shoes smelled like smoke still for months after.
It was a real life hell.
It was so dark you needed a flash light to walk around. The photos you took were with a flash. When we were taking videos with the GoPro, you needed someone to hold a light where you were recording so you could actually see what you were recording. You couldn’t make it for very long inside because the smoke still lingered. It was difficult to breath. It was cold.
So dark and so cold.
If you didn’t know.. Let me tell you. When you lose everything in a fire at home you have to claim it all. So say if you turned your house upside down and dumped everything out, yea, all of that, you need to write it all down. Not just, “I have 10 coffee mugs.” More like.. This is my “brand name” coffee mug that I bought from Target in 2013, it cost me $8.99 when I bought it and if I bought the same one now it would cost $12.50… You do that–For EVERYTHING. You don’t realize how much junk you have until you are writing it all down. This is why we took the GoPro.. It was so cold in the house that you couldn’t stay in there long enough to actually write things down. So you would go through and video what you had, yanno like your 97 t-shirts that you haven’t worn in 7 years… I tried to write down my entire room while I was home for those 6 days.. After I left I was like “oh shit, I forgot to write down my pillows, oh and that lamp on my nightstand, oh yeah, the curtains!..”
You are trying to mourn the loss of your home, your pets, your memories. But you still have this real shit to deal with. All too real.
I think that night after I saw the house for the fist time is when I broke down. Not for the house or the things in it. But for Dunkin and Bunker. I just kept saying I needed that closure. I never got to see my babies for the last time. I wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to know they were okay. I wanted to know where they were when it happened.
If I am being completely honest, I’m still trying to come to peace with it.
Walking around the house there were two places I looked. Under the Christmas tree.. which was Bunker’s favorite place to sleep.. There was a spot where there wasn’t black. A spot I knew he had to have been laying. My heart — Shattered. For Dunkin, it was on the guest bed. We used to always joke that it was his room. I don’t remember if there was a spot there. My brain was too focused on the fact that I knew Dunkin was a fighter. There is no way he would have just slept through that. He would have tried to get out. He wouldn’t have just let it happen. He would have fought. I remember seeing a paw print on the front door. I don’t know if that was from him fighting or from when they brought my babies out of the house. But these things will live in my memory, forever. Call me crazy but there was one day we were in the house and I felt it and I saw Dunkin run by me. I felt the breeze, it took my breath away, and… it freaked me out. I was confused. Like I was in a dream.. “I just saw Dunkin run by me, am I dreaming, what is actually happening right now”.. Yes, a dream.. Nightmare really, I kept thinking I was living in this nightmare and it would all go back to the way it was before.. soon enough.
When I went through the house and through my things it was crazy to see that even in your cabinets and drawers and dressers, the smoke seeps in and turns it black. These things I have had my entire life.. Smoke ridden and black. Boxes of souvenirs I had acquired from around the world, looked like I had bought them all from some kind of hell. The one thing I found that I knew was being protected was in my night stand drawer. I had a few baby photos and Dunkin’s collar. I swear I took it out of the drawer and it was like God had a hand over it during the entire fire. They smelled of that burning but there was no black on them. No soot, no ashes, it was like nothing had ever happened. They were being protected. Oh, my heart.
The next five months were spent writing down everything that was in the house. We had a lot of stuff. I mean, I guess thank God right as it helped pay for a lot of the new things we were able to get for the house. My mom and step dad did a lot of the work. With help from friends and family coming to go through things as well. My mom said by the end she just gave up. She was tired. But you know why it took so long? At the end of that process is when they come in and clear everything out. Everything gets thrown in the dumpster sitting outside your house. Everything you leave inside of your home… turns into garbage. You just have to stop at some point. Stop taking your time and you prepare yourself for the next step. You have to let go. I know part of the reason it took so long to write everything down in those damn excel spreadsheets for insurance was because when you finish, it is the end of that chapter. Besides the things you saved that are black and smoke ridden, everything else is over. Your home as you once knew it, is about to be completely gutted.
“One of the hardest lessons of life is letting go. Whether it’s guilt, anger, love, loss or betrayal. Change is never easy. We fight to hold on. We fight to let go. “
So, it happened. Everything… Gone. But you want to know what? That is when we were able to begin the moving on. You need to clear out the old to let in room for the new. And this, allowing them to clear out the home finally after 4 months, was the beginning.
They began the rebuilding in May. They had to decide on construction ideas and different things that we wanted to add or take away from the design we had before. I spent only 3 weeks at home between my contracts and it was a little crazy. I’m not sure I have shopped so much in my life.
Do you even KNOW how many different shades of beige there are?
We spent 2 of the three weeks I was home deciding on colors of each room, door designs, door handles, will the door be smooth or not smooth, will the ceiling be smooth or not smooth, granite colors, bathroom top colors, bedroom sets, furniture for each room, lamps, lighting, silverware, dog bowls, clocks, picture frames, toasters, coffee machines, bedding, laundry baskets, towels, shower curtains, bath mats, floor mats, kitchen utensils.. I mean really, the list goes on and on and on and on.. Everything. We had to buy all new everything. We spent an entire day deciding on colors for the rooms. Guys every color has about 150 different shades of it. How do you know from this 2 by 2 little piece of paper what it will look like in the entire downstairs or in the bathroom or bedroom or basement. So some of the colors, like.. I dunno.. Ray of Sunshine.. or some shit like that, I was like “well that has a good name let’s pick it!” My mom and I were a little crazy, a little sad, all in all we were laughing by the end of picking the colors for the house.
You know, I think we all went through a bit of a depression during this. I was really lucky to be surrounded by my friends onboard the Jewel of the Seas from the time it happened until I signed off in July. They took care of me. I had my work. I was traveling the world. I was dealing with it the best way I knew how. I had my breakdowns. Every time something new happened in the house, I would randomly open the photos of when it happened, or I would see a cat, I would cry. I drank a lot. Jameson, every night. It would ease the pain a bit so I could fall asleep at night. I couldn’t sleep most nights as I would dream about my cats. I would dream about what it was like before the fire happened.
I went through the stages of grief. I had a lot of support. I wasn’t scared to ask people for help with my emotions. I reached out. You can’t do it on your own. Yes, you need to have your time to feel the emotions you are feeling and let it out. But you need support. You need to talk it out. You need to feel what you are feeling but don’t unpack and live there.
At first– Denial. Which actually came back in waves. The “no that couldn’t have happened” feeling. Even when I saw my house in front of me, the black smoke stains on the outside, the smell coming through the house and onto the driveway, I denied the fact that it was real. That is why I went into shock when I first entered the house. This will keep coming back. You don’t want to believe it is real so human nature tries to protect you. Your brain is trying to protect you by having you believe it didn’t actually happen.
I went through the Anger. I was so angry. I put blame on my mom and step dad. I threw shit. I screamed. I was pissed. I was angry with God. Why did he let this happen. Why did he make this happen. Why didn’t he save us from the pain. Why didn’t he save my cats. And these spouts of anger towards God made me even more angry at myself. I have a very good relationship with God and the Universe so I was so confused as to why I put so much blame on him and what happened. To be fair my boyfriend at the time took the worst beating. I would freak out about nothing and then just break down into tears and every single time the same words came out.. “I just don’t know how to handle this..” And I didn’t.. I had no clue what I was doing. The emotions I was feeling made me feel absolutely nuts. I really did not know HOW to handle them.
The Sadness and Depression hit. The silence. The being in your own head. The not wanting to do anything to help yourself. The drinking. The fits of tears. The questions. Again bringing God into it and wondering why he let this happen. This time not in an angry way but in a helpless way. In a very sad way. It is difficult to lose someone or something you love when you know it is about to happen, but when you don’t… My God the pain that inflicts is incredible.
Acceptance.
I’m not sure when it happened. It happened over time. I think the more I was able to speak about it and let it out the easier it was. I still am learning to accept the fact that Dunkin and Bunker are no longer with us. I feel their presence every day. Weird things happen here in the house. I’ll smell the smoke of that electrical fire, sometimes. The other day all of our silverware fell from the drying rack into the sink. I laughed and said “oh, Dunkin is letting us know he is here.” I know they will never truly be gone. They will always live on here with us. They still visit me in my dreams. Sometimes I wake up sad, sometimes I wake up happy.
One day I will have to go to the storage unit and see everything that I packed up that day from the house and smell the smell and see the blackness again. I will deal with it when that day comes.
But let me just tell you the house now is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!! It couldn’t be better. The way I feel coming home now is so different than any way I have felt coming home in the last 13 years. It is open and happy and positive and willing and fulfilling. Can you even believe how much a home can do for what you are feeling.
I had to do a lot of letting go. A lot of soul searching. A lot of tears were cried and still at moments I will let out those emotions again. But you have to learn to go through it. I cried A LOT. I mean any where and every where.
I am so thankful for so many people I worked on the ship with. So many people that let me cry on their shoulders night after night. The amount of amazing human beings that we may not have spoken to in months or years that sent us a card or a gift card or a basket full of chocolates. I mean the outpouring of love was unlike anything I could have imagined. As much pain as I was in I kept thinking to myself about how much GOOD in the world there really is. There is guys. SO MUCH GOOD! When tragedy strikes you really learn so much about how much love people have in their hearts. Look, I don’t know why this happened to us. But I know that I learned so much over the last year and a half about how much love people really do have in their hearts. How much good there really is in the world.
Have you ever heard the song “Rise Up” By Andra Day? This song got me through it. I listened to this song multiple times a day. I promise you. If you are struggling today… My God, this song will help you through. We can all Rise Up. We can all push forward. We can all go through that terrible hell and make our way out on the other side. The other, most beautiful side. There are reasons why these things happen in life. Reasons that we may not understand now, or a month from now.. But maybe just maybe 3, 7, 20 years down the line we will understand. We all have our lives laid out before us right? So if this didn’t happen.. Maybe whatever happened or happens after it would not have ever been a part of the story. Maybe.. this needed to happen to me, to us, so we could help other each other. It will be okay everyone. I promise.
Whatever your struggle is today, there is a light. And I promise you– It will be Okay.
You’re broken down and tired
Of living life on a merry go round
And you can’t find the fighter
But I see it in you so we gonna walk it out
And move mountains
We gonna walk it out
And move mountains And I’ll rise up
I’ll rise like the day
I’ll rise up
I’ll rise unafraid
I’ll rise up
And I’ll do it a thousand times again
And I’ll rise up
High like the waves
I’ll rise up
In spite of the ache
I’ll rise up
And I’ll do it a thousands times again
For you
For you
For you
For you When the silence isn’t quiet
And it feels like it’s getting hard to breathe
And I know you feel like dying
But I promise we’ll take the world to its feet
And move mountains
We’ll take it to its feet
And move mountains And I’ll rise up
I’ll rise like the day
I’ll rise up
I’ll rise unafraid
I’ll rise up
And…
