How to survive a fire: "Behold I make all things new..."

One of the most important things in life itself is a person’s faith. We are members of Cure of Ars Roman Catholic Church here in Merrick and are deeply involved in our parish as well as sending our daughter to Catholic school where my wife is very involved as a class mom.

It wouldn’t be until the day after the fire that we realized the extent of our church family and their concern. As Catholic’s we are taught charity and caring for people overall regardless of their faith. I just never imagined being on the receiving end. Now I have had people in my life help me over the past few years with some very difficult situations. They have helped send my daughter to school, helped me with overwhelming medical debt but what we would experience was something we never imagined.

When word got out the fire happened we were contacted by so many parishioners, many we know many we know by casual “hello and Goodbye” and some I never met before. Everything from monetary collections to clothing, toys, blankets food you name it and it was collected.

A fellow parishioner I saw most weeks and had a casual and friendly relationship pulled up with $100 in front of my house the day after so we could go get some essentials. And this wouldn’t stop for several days.

My daughter’s principal called to say we had enough to worry about and all tuition and books were taken care of. Her principal has done this in the past and knows no end to her generosity. Complete strangers who heard of what happened sent gifts and offered services.

All this would help in different ways to somehow make it a little more bearable to get through the day knowing there was help and [people who cared out there. And of course our home parish and our pastor and fellow priests where nothing short of angles and continue to be the shoulders to cry on that we need.

As all this was going on, the salvage was coming to an end. There wasn’t much more to get out and it was becoming more of a reality everything was basically gone at this point. The smell of the burned wood and mold was now in my nose and not leaving. It was a sickening stench and getting worse as each day became hotter and hotter going into summer.

There were piles of our belongings all over the house turning into huge piles of wet mold and getting worse by the minute. Our once white walls were now covered in black mold and the oak floors began to pop and buckle so bad you needed to be very careful as you stepped. You either tripped over a huge buckle or didn’t know if it was going to hold up at this point and your foot would fall through.

On top of all this I was now having nightmares. I would wake up grabing my throat and gasping for air as I would dream I was being hit with the smoke again. Over and over this happened. I would dream I was in the burned out house looking for something. I didn’t know what I was looking for but I was looking. I couldn’t go anywhere near my house after late afternoon and at night I would get very anxious if I even had to pass the block. I associated night with the fire and when I was asked one day to go to the house after 5 p.m., I started to have an anxiety attack at the very idea of it.

As the days past and the inventory crew finished we were told the clean out crew was next. That meant everything in the house was going to the landfill. The contractor was preparing to start in a few weeks and it was time to clean it out. We knew this was something we wanted no part of. We decided to stay away for most of the day since we would end up trying ot go through things for the hundred time and keep what was now trash. We could make arguments for saving anything but reality was it was mold covered trash.

I did want to check up on the workers and pulled up to see piles of stuff loaded on dump trucks. The lawn was covered with our now destroyed possessions. Piles and piles all going into landfill. Talk about depressing. This would go on for two days.

The garage that was filled as well was also destroyed. All being loaded on to the trucks. When my wife and our friend pulled up the scene only got worse. We tried to look for anything we could take (we broke our own rule) but it was hopeless. Then, a worker came down with a cardboard box he found in the crawl space of the attic. It was something we put there years ago and forgot about. It was destroyed. Water, fire smoke it was a mess.

At this point I can safely say we all asked God for a sign everything was going to be OK. We needed something, anything to calm our now shattered nerves. My wife reached in to the box and it was filled with old notes and books. Something she had long forgotten about and of no real importance.

As she reached in and lifted a book I had blurted out “God send us a sign its going to be fine” and a book mark fell from the notebook.

Now mind you, there was nothing religious in this box. Nothing but old notes and notebooks. Out falls the bookmark; “Behold, I make all things new…”-Revelations 21:5.

We all looked at each other. The tears started flowing. God had now started to use instant messaging!! I do not care what denomination or religion you are or if you have no religion but nobody and I mean absolutely nobody will ever convince me God was not right there at that exact moment to calm us and speak to us. After that fell out a strange calm came over us.

I suddenly felt a release of anxiety I had all day. I told this story to a few friends that day and dead silence came over them. When I finally told my pastor, the look on his face of total shock and amazement only confirmed everything he was telling us and that was everything is possible with God. HE will never abandon you and HE will never leave you alone. All you need to do is let HIM in and HE is there forever.