Okay, with that much said -a warning for you as you read this -let me get on with this post.
The first part of this post is not a whine number but a little information on what happened to me, to my family, shortly after my last post here. That was a week ago today on January 28th -a day that will be locked in my mind forever, for sure.
How's that, you ask? Well, it's because sometime after I wrote that last post -around 9:15 last Wednesday night, I had a big shock as a neighbor of my son's phoned me to tell me that my son's house was on fire!
He had an old house on the top of the hill here in our little village and yes indeed, last Wednesday night his home went up in flames! His girlfriend (Chantel) and her little two-year-old daughter (Catrin) had just moved in with him about a month ago and knowing they were there, my first concern was if they got out of the house or if they were still inside. Thankfully, the young lady who phoned me said they had gotten out and were across the road with the neighbors there. Count that as one big relief and really, the first of many blessing that came out of this whole thing!
Thankfully too that the state of Pennsylvania has a requirement for anyone who has a mortgage and that is that it is absolutely MANDATORY that the home owner carries home owners/fire insurance! And the next blessing was that my son had actually listened to me when he took out his home owners policy and had it insured at "full replacement value!"
Although the walls of the old house are still standing, and we don't know the full details that will take place with the insurance and such, I really doubt that they will try to have him "rebuild" this place. The 2nd story and the attic were completely gutted plus severe damage done to the roof too -which by the way, also happened to be a metal roof but is now pretty far gone in the damages department. So we're thinking most likely it will be determined to be a total loss.
Within a very short period of time though, my Facebook wall was going crazy with messages asking what happened, if Chantel and little Catrin were okay, were was my son (on his way home from a run he'd made earlier Wednesday to Bristol, CT) and did they need anything, any help whatsoever? By Thursday morning people began to arrive at my house bringing whatever they thought Clate and Chantel could use or would need, etc. As a result, they had many donations made early on of clothing and also, money. Both much needed commodities, ya know, since 98% of their clothes went up in smoke and he's not been able to work since last Wednesday due to trying to get things resolved with the insurance company and such.
He was by Thursday night really blown away by the prayers and donations brought to my house or to Chantel's parents' home too of so many needed items and the caring messages continued to flood in for them from friends and family from all over the place it seemed.
They have been staying at the local motel but now, they are in the process of getting situated in a rental property owned by some very good family friends and should be settled in there perhaps as early as this afternoon or evening now. Hopefully the sooner the better as little Catrin is very confused by all this and initially, not knowing, not understanding, at her young age, what had transpired, she was fussing and crying, saying "I want to go home!"
But if anyone reading this is among those who messaged me or Clate or Chantel or any other members of my family or of Chantel's family, or are friends of ours, thank you, thank you, thank you for the very generous outpouring of love and everything else -many, many prayers -and giving thanks with us that all that got hurt was the house! They will recover from that and will be forging ahead a little more each and every day.
Hopefully, things will have settled down enough by tomorrow now and Clate will then be able to go back to work which will go a long way then to assist them having a paycheck once again, for openers.
After that, it will be moving as quickly as the insurance can all be processed and so far, the adjustor has been working with them at each and every turn to see that they get all the help they need. Yes, you are -at least in my opinion -in good hands with this company!
Because of the fire, I now have a third cat here too! Chantel's big and beautiful -truly, he is gorgeous -Maine Coon TomCat (MoJo) is currently camping here as it's a lot easier for me to add another cat into the household than for them to cart him all over while they are still staying in the motel. He was pretty standoffish at first -growling and hissing at my cats and the dog and then, doing the same routine with me too. But the past couple of days he has begun to loosen up a bit with me anyway. Apparently he has figured out that my hand is the one now feeding hin and judging by the size of this boy, he's never missed much in the way of meals! I wanted to take a photo of him but haven't gotten around to doing that as yet.
But I do have a photo I can share taken of the house the morning after the fire. You can perhaps get a bit of an idea of the destruction that occurred there in this photo.
Not necessarily the best photo of the old place but hopefully, it gives some idea of what it looks like today.
And that's the end of my story about the latest event in the life and times of my family and me. This wasn't really a whine and cheese post, only slightly. Stay tuned for the next installment which shall be labeled as Cheesy Whining, Part Deux!
1 comment:
I'm so sorry your son and his girlfriend lost their house, but glad to hear everyone got out safely!
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