and then there came a fire

It has been quite a week.

Actually, it feels like that every week. Every Sunday, people ask me how my week has been, and I honestly can't remember. And it's not just me; the kids feel the same way. They say things like, "It feels like months have gone by since the last time we came to church!" Even though it was only last week. So apparently, there really is a tremendous amount happening every week.

This week it was a fire at Keith's parents' home that has affected everything. His parents are fine, thank God, and their home is fine too. But the fire destroyed their storage building and chicken house, and it burned up everything we owned that we didn't bring along to Iowa.

I can't say that it was devastating, because I have what is most important to me - my family - right here. But it is hard, and rather a shock, and although I tend to be okay with stressful situations when they first happen, I may find myself needing to grieve this a bit more down the line (when we are not also simultaneously grieving leaving this church and working every spare minute toward finding a job for Keith). The fire eliminated some heirloom things like my grandfather's and great-grandfather's armed forces uniforms, and it destroyed some irreplaceable stuff like my parents' wedding pictures and a lot of pictures from my childhood and high school and our college years. It destroyed a box of memories from our dating years, and all the correspondence we shared then (I had once printed off all of the emails Keith and I ever exchanged... yes, I am that sentimental). It burned up my wedding dress, and that is perhaps the hardest thing for me; I am really sad about that loss! It burned up things I probably didn't still need to keep, but did, because I am ridiculously sentimental: my prom dress (becuase I went to prom with Keith, you know), and all of our wedding cards that people gave us, and all the 0-12 months little baby girl clothes and baby boy clothes that I had kept for future babies.

It actually might be the baby clothes that is hardest for me! All those sweet little outfits that I dressed my tiny babies in! The little bunting bag that my friend Missy made for Rilla, and the little dress she made for Rilla's one-year-old birthday, too. Sweet clothes sent by so many friends from so far away to celebrate our baby girl with us! The handknit snowsuit that was made for me as a baby, and the sweater that was made for me too. The adorable, sweet clothes sent by so many for my dear little girl. There were lots of cute boy clothes too... but somehow I miss the sweet little girl clothes more. So many precious things that were given to our dear, tiny baby girl. Even the rocking chair that Rilla's great-grandmother made for her, and the chair that my grandparents gave me when I was little, and the rocking horse that was mine when I was a child... all of those were burned up too.

Those, and also the silver dollars that my Granddad gave me; and Keith's marbles that his dad gave him; and maybe even the beaverskin mittens that my dad wore in the Arctic, although we're still hoping to find those here. And my computer from college, with all my college writings saved on it from both Whitworth and Prairie, along with all the printed versions as well that were in storage there, and all of Keith's aviation books, including (we think) his aviation logbook, which had all of his flight hours written in it, and which cannot be replaced.

And of course, as I well know and as Rilla and Keith remind me, what we really need is right here. I still have the children, and I still have my husband, and of course they are infinitely more precious than the clothing and whatnot that helped mark certain epochs in our life together. But... oh, it is hard to lose the "baby's first year" calendar, where I wrote down everything that I did with Rilla, all the time! All her first words and foods and other milestones! All her sweet receiving blankets, and the cards people sent us for her. And it is hard to lose the many handwritten letters Keith and I wrote to each other before marriage.

We do have plenty of memory things here with us; quite a lot of pictures made the trip, and the children's baby books, and probably a myriad more than we really need. And at least we won't have to store those other things anymore, right? And at least we have each other, and at least we have rental insurance to cover the things that had monetary value. It is not a complete loss. And our kids will never have the bother of having to go through all those stacks of old letters... well, no, that part is pretty sad to me. But Keith's beekeeper suit and drum tuner and things like that are replaceable, and we still have plenty here to be sentimental about.

Anyway... it's been quite a week.