Family

3 Pages 834 Words

Out of the Ashes

I’ll never forget December 31, 1999. It was the most horrible night of my life. It

was the night our house burned down. It was a night of terror that I hope my family and

I never have to go through again. We literally escaped with the clothes on our backs.

Even though it was the most horrifying thing that ever happened to us, it was also the

beginning of many miracles and revelations.

I remember arriving home from work that night around 12:30 a.m. and found my

two sons waiting up for me. We talked for a while and had a bowl of homemade chicken

soup. The kids wanted to stay up late and enjoy their Christmas presents, but I could only

think of getting to bed. After throwing a load of clothes in the dryer, I tucked my boys

into bed. My oldest son Erick Jr. put up a little bit of a fight about having to go to bed

because he wanted to watch his brand new television set. Looking back, it was his small

measure of rebelliousness that would eventually save our lives that night.

I was awakened at 2:00 a.m. by Erick Jr. telling me that he smelled smoke. I was

half awake and without my contact lenses, I had a hard time stumbling out of bed and

down the hall. Suddenly, I was pushed aside by my husband, who had heard the word

“smoke” and bolted out of a deep sleep. As we ran to the kitchen, we could see an orange

glow at the bottom of the door leading to the garage. My husband opened the door and
we could see that the back of the dryer was on fire. My husband tried to douse the flames

with a bucket of water, but after seeing that the flames were climbing the wall and going

into the rafters, he yelled at me to dial 911. This was obviously not the smartest thing to

do, but we were in a panic and not thinking straight. It turned out that the fire had already

burned most of the wiring in the house, and the phone was dead. I thought...