One lifetime to go

March 6, 2011

It has been one week. This one week has felt like an entire lifetime. How can something be so vivid in your mind and be so distant at the same time?

We went to run errands. On the way back, Chance drove straight past our turn. About sixty seconds later, he realized he was driving to our house that wasn’t there anymore. That’s like a sucker punch to the gut.

We met the insurance lady on Saturday. Turns out we have to list every item we owned. I happen to find that very cruel. I don’t want to sit down and remember everything we owned and I certainly don’t want to feel like I have to “prove it”. It’s making me angry just thinking about it. I assumed since the entire place was absolutely destroyed and the policy is minimal, they would just call it a day. Nope, here’s your stack of papers to fill out. We had triple the policy limit in assets, why force us to re-hash it?

Oh, and by the way go check your policy. Turns out that there is a limit on what you can claim for jewelry. $500.00 – yeah that was another one of those sucker punches. I told her I had one bracelet worth more than the limit, one bracelet out of my entire jewelry box.  “Sorry honey, that doesn’t mean shit to us. Guess you should have insured your jewelry separately.” You can imagine the awful things I was thinking.

I went to Red Cross. I can’t even describe the feelings and emotions that put me through. You’ll never know the feeling of being a “victim” and having to stand in line to receive assistance, unless you go through it yourself. Nothing can make you understand those emotions, I don’t even understand them. But Warren, my case worker (who was my hero that day), gave me a debit card! Which was awesome, because I didn’t need bottles of water. Thank You Red Cross. Seriously.

We took Bocephus to the scene of destruction. I thought he’d be all over the place, but he didn’t set a foot in the ashes. He didn’t want anything to do with it. I wonder how much he understands. Does he remember?

I came up to my office. Strangely, it was really really hard. We had spent several days grieving over the fact that all of our possessions were gone. My brain was finally comprehending and accepting the concept. Then I walk in my office and I have things. My possessions were right where I had left them. It was like being in the Twilight Zone. It wasn’t registering in my brain. I sat in my chair and looked at every item in the room. Every shelf, every picture, everything. I have things again. I felt a mixture of relief and anxiety at the same time. I don’t know why, but its hard to accept. Why are these things here and my other things are gone?  Why can’t everything just be where I left it? Why?

One week down. One lifetime to go.