Chapter 25 | Oh, Hey Hurricane Harvey

Bill and I had a big weekend planned this weekend exploring areas of our state we had never seen. We were going to spend Friday going to see the George W Bush Presidential Library and then spend the evening with friends in Bryan, TX. Saturday morning we were heading to Waco to see the mammoth…

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With Glad and Sincere Hearts by Chris

I have been trying to write about this for a while now. There are a lot of emotions attached to this experience, there’s a lot of pain and hurt and guilt and all the things I’ve written about thus far. They are the things that take time to work through, the things you have to…

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Chapter 24 | Unforced Rhythms of Grace by Chris

Noise is hard. Drama is hard. One of my favorite TV shows is The Walking Dead. I have a slight fascination with zombie based lore. Our fire was on a Friday, the new season premiered two days later on Sunday. I haven’t been able to watch a single episode. Watching a show that places me…

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Chapter 23 | The Process: Day of The Fire

I’ve had people reach out and say, “My friend/sister/dad/aunt experienced a fire today, what can I do? Where do they begin?” So we wrote this down as a small guide. This is a wild beast of a day. The best I can suggest is delegate. The Office Bag My mom, in her infinite wisdom the…

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Chapter 22 | PTSD and Other Tales

Days after the fire a family friend messaged me and let me know friends of hers had a bed and some other furniture they would like to give me. Days after the fire I couldn’t even comprehend buying underwear, much less what furniture we would need. My brain was broken, it didn’t function. I’m not…

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Chapter 21 | Anger, Guilt and A Lot of Woe Is Me

When you write a nasty message to a company on Facebook at close to midnight remember that there is a human being on the other end managing that social media account that gets a ping to their phone. And then they read the message. And then they can’t sleep. Because they’ve had such a year…

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Chapter 20 | How Are Things? A Loaded Question

I often have people ask me, “How are things?” If they are truly interested in how things actually are, there’s typically a sideways glance attached to the question. Their eyebrows are raised slightly in the center and they always shrug and nod their head slightly when they ask. It’s almost like they’re afraid to ask.…

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Chapter 17 | Mourning Trees by Chris

Last Thursday was April 6th. Seven years ago on April 6th, we signed the papers for our house. We received the keys. Actually, we forget to get the keys at closing and called our realtor laughing as we realized we had to go back to the title company to get them. I remember opening the…

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