The Fire. From a Woman Who Lost It All....Or Did She?

Isaiah 41:10 NIV

So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you;

    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

I asked my niece, Belinda Spitler, if I could share her thoughts that she posted on facebook. Please welcome the tender hearted words of Belinda, who lost everything she and her two boys owned in a house fire on September 17th of this year. God bless her, a single mother, who puts her life back together one day at a time.

The fire

     So, everyone keeps asking how I’m doing. I would say that I’m about 96% ok. The other four percent, I’m just lying until I believe it myself. I’m almost in denial. It’s a surreal kinda thing, like it didn’t really happen, except, the reality is that it did. I can feel my inner firecracker trying to come back.  I still love to laugh and be silly, there’s no changing that. I was making stupid jokes while it was happening. As long as I can keep laughing, everything will be fine. I know this.

The things that set me off are less and less each day, but I still don’t know what’s going to trigger my leaky face syndrome. I threw a tantrum one day last week and just started throwing away all the cases to the movies that were saved. I hate the burnt everything and couldn’t stand to look at it anymore. I hate the smell of burnt anything. Burnt toast in the kitchen or a smoke filled room from the grill being cleaned at work had me in tears one day (or maybe more than one. I hate the ashes on my hands and the smell that is still in some of my things. Fire in movies makes me tweak out just a little.

     I’ve gone through a whole range of grieving. Everything from, sad, complete meltdown, ok, anger, denial, and even guilt. Yes, guilt. I was awake at 2:52 a.m. when a fan that we thought was a great find at the thrift store started making horrible squealing noises. Why didn’t I go check on my kids? If I had gotten up to check on them, that was a 25 minute difference from when I was awake to when I was on

the phone with 911. Logically, I know that this isn’t my fault. Mommy guilt likes to show its ugly

head at the most inopportune times. What would that extra 25 minutes have done? Every time I wake up now, you can be damn sure that I’m out of bed checking on those boys.

Belinda's Camera

    I despise shopping. Something that I could just take or leave depending on my mood, I actually despise it now. I try to go to the store, sometimes out of habit or boredom, and I just stare blankly at everything. Yup, I want things, and maybe even need things. It’s not just a filler here or there, it’s everything. Looking at furniture, I think, what’s the point? I’d rather sit on the floor. Looking for shoes, well that’s great, I have nothing to go with them. Grocery shopping, yeah I have no idea. A few meals here and there, but I need everything. The art store, um yeah. It kills. I don’t just need a canvas or a tube of paint, or just something new and different. I need all of it and have no idea where to even begin. I feel like I’m ready to start painting again, just a little, just to give my hands something to do. Am I ready to hang anything on the wall? Nope. I’m more prepared to look at blank walls than I am to hang things up again. I just can’t bring myself to do it. 

      I thought, at the time, that it was better for me to see it happening than to come home and had it already happen. Wrong. So very wrong. I could do without still hearing my children screaming. This is what gets me every time.  I could do without the memory of not being able to get out the front door, and laying in the middle of the road completely helpless, and crying so much that I wanted to throw up, as I watched my house burn. The sound of the smoke detector going off AFTER we got out to the road.

Why don’t we have smoke detectors outside? What seemed like an eternity for the fire trucks to get to my house.  It would have been better for me to just come home to it instead. 

Yes, I know that it could have been worse. I'm so very thankful that no one got hurt. I'm also thankful for the outpouring of love that we've received, the thoughts, prayers, and donations from family, friends, and strangers.  My head is a little screwed up right now, but I'm still so very lucky to have so many fantastic people in my (our) life. These things will lessen over quite a bit of time, and I'm just impatient and ready for it to be done and gone. I've started

over before, more than once, so I know I'm capable. I just want it to go away faster! 

 I asked Belinda, "How has God touched you in this?" My heart smiled as she answered,

     " I know every time something like this happens, I'm being redirected to something better. It takes a little bit, but if you don't let it keep you down, you see what the purpose was a lot faster. I'll be better off than I was before. In addition to the great guy God sent me.

Curtis,Belinda, Lucas and Justin

Belinda is adored and respected by many of her friends. Katie Cox has put together a fund raiser to help assist Belinda and her boys, Justin and Lucas as they work on starting over. You can find this  site at :

http://www.gofundme.com/b79yms

Brilliant photographer house fire

"Belinda is one of my dearest friends, a woman that would give the shirt off of her back for anyone. She is a brilliant fine art photographer and artist. Most importantly she is a single mom that is raising two of the sweetest boys you could ever meet. 

This morning she lost her house in a fire. Truly devastating, but anyone that knows B knows that for her home is where her boys, her camera, and her art supplies are. She and her boys are fine, but all three of her cameras, her computer, and all of her art supplies were destroyed in the fire (along with everything else). Belinda is a waitress at Dennys. She's a college student, she's a mom. These things were an investment for her, they weren't toys. Replacing everything will take time, she will put her boys first. Please help me raise money to replace her equipment and relieve some of the burden from this woman." ( Katie Cox)