Posts by Christina Sizemore

Three hours before the fire I walked into our bedroom and woke my sleeping husband (he works overnights, or at least did, before the fire). “Hey, we have that gun safety class at 3:00. Do you want me to reschedule since you’re feeling bad or are you feeling up to it?” He half opened an…

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…

I am not a natural runner. My body is far from slim, my legs are not long. Gazelle-like is not how I would describe myself. I mean if I had to describe myself as an animal it would certainly be more along the lines of momma bear; fierce, strong, protective of her family, determined and…well…

I remember asking a few questions to every person the day of the fire. The first was, “How do I tell my almost 4 year old that I burnt down our house and that her dog is dead?” The other question was always, “I don’t know what to do, what happens next?” That second question…

It’s hard to scroll through facebook. I see posts about how annoying it was that the line at the DMV was long, obscure post about life being terrible, annoyances at phone issues, the weather, starbucks getting an order wrong. I read these and want to reply with, “I watched my house burned down.” Perspective. I’ve…

Before this experience I’d heard of panic attacks. I knew people had them, and they said they were debilitating. I knew I’d heard it. But I’d never experienced it. I think I mostly heard about people having them on planes. Something about being afraid of flying and being in an enclosed space thousands of feet…

Many people have said things like, “You know, at some point, not now, but at some point it’s going to be fun, you get to design whatever house you want, and buy brand new things.” There’s always extra emphasis on “brand new things” when they say it. While I know logically this is probably the…

NOTE: You can read part 1 here “I need to call my mom.” “Mam, we need your ID.” “My phone and purse are in my car.” “Where is your car?” “It’s in the road, the lady in the pink bath robe has my keys.” I suppose they sent someone to find her. I don’t really…

Today we went back to the house. By we I mean myself, my mom, dad and two good friends. Bill cannot go back in, and rightly so. I however felt like I needed to conquer it, to seek out anything the fire tried to take but missed. I’ve had a running list on my phone…

by Bill On Sunday after the fire the folks at Service Master were going through the house again, to find everything else they could clean and salvage. I couldn’t face the house that day, so I sat on the front lawn and watched as they catalogued and tagged everything we owned that might be salvageable. I…