Since the house fire and losing our home and everything else we owned, we needed to completely start our lives over.
After the fire, my mother wasn’t even a topic to us. Looking back, she must have been hospitalized for her burns, then most likely spent time in a psych hospital, but it wasn’t even a thought for me.
We needed somewhere to live for the time being while our home was being rebuilt. Oddly enough, my father found a house to rent directly behind our burned down house.
I slightly remember this time of my life. We had to start shopping for new clothes, because all of our current clothes were donations from others.
My father had to furnish some of the rented house. I remember just sleeping on mattresses in our bedrooms and having a small television sitting on the floor of the bedroom I shared with my younger sister.
I would watch our house being rebuilt, and at first, I could still smell the awful burnt smell that was emitting from our home.
I was still very angry that we were put in this situation, and I just wanted to go home.
I continued to ask my father if we could try to find out pets that he said ran away during the fire. I was still certain that they all died, but at this age, looking back, obviously, my father would not tell us that.
I’m not sure how long we lived in the rented house, but it must have been over a year. I ended up living across the street from my friend at the time and would spend a lot of time there.
It felt good to be in a home with a stable mother and to see how much different their life was from. It kind of made me jealous. Why couldn’t my family be like theirs was. In those moments, I felt abandoned by God. All I thought was that my life was a mistake, and what I’ve gone through is punishment.
So my family lived in this house until ours was rebuilt, and never once did anyone talk about the fire or ask where our mother was. It’s as if we treated the situation like it never even happened.
One big thing I remember while living in this rented house was celebrating Christmas. That holiday always made me think about the awful times a little less. I knew my father wanted to make life for his family better during the holidays.
All I wanted was to be able to escape my homelife and find a stable family to live with. That was, as usual, wishful thinking.
The Outspoken Advocate 