Posts by Christina Sizemore

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…

by Bill So, I’ve never really been one to put much stock in owning things. Don’t get me wrong, there were things I really enjoyed and would spend money on to own, but I never thought things had meaning to me. That is, until I lost everything. We were walking through the house on Saturday,…

by Chris I’ve always worked well with lists, there’s something cathartic about scratching something off a to do list item once it’s done, like the mark of a hero who’s just conquered a great nation. I still keep (or kept, it burned) a physical day planner just so I could work weekly to do lists…