Life Update: The Fire, Part 1

Wow, it’s been a few months since the worst night of our lives, and while it’s all we’ve talked about on social media, I realized I haven’t posted here. So, update: on March 13th, our house burned down.

This will be a long read, and it’s taken me days to write, but I wanted to get everything out there. For you, but mainly for me. Because if this major life event is anything like life events of the past- I’ve learned as time goes on, our memory begins to fade.

TRIGGER WARNING: a detailed account of the night of our fire is below.

So, what happened? It was a regular evening. We had dinner, packed lunches for the next day, did the whole bedtime routine, and I tucked my kids into their beds. We went to sleep like any other normal night. Except this night would be the furthest thing from normal. AJ has ringing in his ears, like most every other veteran, and thus sleeps with a big ugly old box fan in our room. We think we eventually lost power and the fan shut off, which is why he woke up. As the fan hummed down to nothing, AJ was startled out of bed. I awoke a moment later when I heard him running around our room. I noticed a faint brown haze and asked AJ what was going on. He simply said “fire!”.

Now, I’ll preface this by saying, I used to joke often about how AJ died in a fire in his past life (eerie now to think how many times I’ve said that). But, I thought it was true! I’ve never met anyone who was as concerned about fire as him. He double checks everything before bed, he makes us all sleep with the doors shut, etc. So, naturally, our bedroom door was shut. When he said “fire”, my brain didn’t even think. I just jumped from my bed- leaving everything; my glasses, my phone. When I opened our door, it felt like I hit a brick wall. I was pounded by the thickest, blackest smoke I’ve ever seen, from floor to ceiling.

My immediate thought was simply “kids”. It’s weird. Looking back, I wasn’t thinking. It was just like single words popping into my head. I knew we were in a bad situation and I had to find my kids fast. For some reason, I ran right past Gunner and Molly’s room and straight to Willow and Riley. I’m not sure why I did that.

The smoke was so thick- you could not breathe and you could not see. I made my way to their room by feeling along the walls. I went to Willow’s bed and felt around. I frantically felt around again. She was not in her bed, and I knew we only had seconds. I moved on to Riley’s bed, where she laid asleep. I woke her up and yelled at her to get in the hallway. She did exactly as she was told. When we got to the hallway, Madelynn appeared, holding Willow, having just returned from Emme’s room yelling at her to wake up. Thank, God, she had Willow. Molly then ran towards us, where we all stood in the middle of the hallway gasping for breath. A second later, I head a body hit the ground. Emme had stumbled from her room and fell into the hallway. I picked her up. All of this happened within seconds. At this point, we were unable to breathe and we had to go. I did not know where AJ was, and I was praying he had Gunner.

We attempted to run towards the backstairs. The smoke was pouring up the stairway to hard, we couldn’t even get close. So we turn to run to the front stairs. We ran into AJ in the hallway and he simply shouted “no!”. Okay, so we weren’t making it downstairs. “Window” was all I thought. I pushed through to Madelynn’s room, busted out her screen, and instructed all the kids to get onto the roof. They were scared, but again they did exactly as they were told.

Once we got to the roof, smoke was pouring out the window to us. I didn’t have a phone, so I started screaming for help, quickly realizing no one would hear me. I asked if anyone grabbed their phone, and Molly did. I called 911.

While beginning the call to 911, AJ appeared at the same window we had just come out of. Alone. Immediately I thought of Gunner. “Where’s Gunner?!” I screamed, to which AJ replied “I don’t have him.” No, no, no. My son was still in the house. The smoke was unbearable. I knew if I went back in, I likely wouldn’t make it out. But I knew I couldn’t leave my son in there. I looked at AJ in the eyes and said “I’m going in!”. He stared back at me for a moment and turned around.

As I watched him disappear into the black room, I immediately knew I may not see him again. It’s a feeling I cannot describe. I was scared out of my mind, but I also had an ounce of confidence. AJ is a hero. He always has been. He is a United States Marine. He’s always protected us. He’s been to war, multiple tours in Iraq; but he had just walked into perhaps the biggest battle of his life. He had to save his son.

Part 2 coming soon. But in the meantime, you can listen to our 911 call here. I share this not for views or likes. But I share because I want our story to help someone else. I want you to truly hear our story, see what we went through, so you can make your home safer than ours was. We don’t ever want another family to go through this nightmare. So, we share our story not for us, but for you.