The club is already too big. Who is in it, and what happened to you? What has helped your recovery, and how far along in it are you now?

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Our fire was in December 5, 2000. We lost most of a 2-story addition, all blended-family memorabilia, had major water damage to big appliances, and major smoke damage in the whole house including an enormously powerful old Mac which Amos had just sold me.

We had insurance on the contents, TBTG. Had a pretty hairy legal sitch. No people were home when it happened but the pets were terrified (no deaths). No music stuff lost, amazingly and TBTG.

The landlord rewired the house the night of the fire, so we could stay in the house, God bless him and the farm systems guy who helped him while we poured coffee and hung out with them in the "warm" basement. We lost only one night out of the house. Gosh-- neighbors, here.... Neighbors also limited the amount of fire and got the gas turned off. Another one took the most terrified critter, no questions asked as I just sort of dumped her and headed back to the hot ash-pile to look for the cats (who had hidden and didn't get found for days). TBTG the daughter with mono was asleep at SCHOOL and not HERE. A whole chain of "but for the Grace of God" moments, thanks to the kind of people we have here.

Our main support was... each other and the Church Insurance Corp. which honored our wish not to sue the landlord-- tho he was (unknowingly thru his insurance) suing us for several years. (When his mom/our original landlady found out about the lawsuits that had hung over us for so long, she pitched a fit at her lawyers and made them drop it "AT ONCE, why didn't you TELL us????!!!")

The church treasurer came over the night it happened, barged right into our shivering shame and shock (TBTG), and gave us an early paycheck for emergency lodging. He also stored all our handguns till we were ready, and his wife sent us one of their Sunday suppers to DIE FOR.

The landlord sent a fresh deer our way the week after it happened. We found it sitting by the back door, unannounced, and immediately passed it along to a clergy couple up the road with hungry teenagers (able to pick it up and dress it).

Seamus Kennedy. He knows what he did, blessed man.

I had just left my Red Cross managership the week or two before. The local fire guys and I had a good laugh about their presence being the hard way to get a clean house. We were so surprised to come home and find all the red trucks at OUR house!!!

Worst practical difficulty-- the whole back end of the house lost its airlock in a bad winter, and then the rebuild took forever with insurance companies fighting-- so we lived in ashes for WAY too long-- including a chilly spring MudGather (dear, DEAR Bert and others, LH... ).

~Susan