Imagine

Imagine this for a moment. It's early in the morning. You wake up, but don't quite recognize your surroundings. You walk into the bathroom to take a shower, but when you step out afterwards, you have no towels to dry off with. Your toothbrush and basic toiletries are also missing. You put on the shirt you wore the night before and head to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. But when you open the cupboards, you can't find any dishes. And no silverware in the drawer. Or any cereal, for that matter. Instead you opt for scrambled eggs, but can't find a pan anywhere. Which doesn't matter, as there's no eggs in the fridge. Or milk. Or OJ. In a daze, you head to the living room to check your email. But there's no furniture. Or computer. You look around, and notice that the walls are bare. No pictures. No artwork. You decide to watch the morning news. But there's no TV. And it dawns on you that you can't read a book, because there are none to be found. You go back to the bedroom and put on the rest of your clothes from last night. Then it dawns on you that you've been awake half the night, unable to sleep. And then reality hits...

Does this sound like the beginnings of a bad novel or what? Well, it's happening in real life, right now. I mentioned on my HNT that Phain's apartment burned to the ground. It happened early last night. She has lost everything. Neither her nor her kids were at home when the fire broke out, so there was no chance for an heroic attempt to save anything. No pictures of the kids, parents, grandparents... No heirlooms. No clothes. No valuables. No toys. Still don't know if the cat made it. Everything gone. Wrap your mind around that for a minute and what that really means... Not damaged in a flood. Or some things stolen. Everything but the clothes on their backs is G-O-N-E. Burned. A pile of ashes. Non-existent.

Except the iPhone. How do I know she was awake all night? We texted for a bit, and it was well past 1AM my time. And she's on the east coast. At that point she was still in that suspended place between disbelief, grief, and exhaustion. She just needed to talk (not sure why she just didn't call, other than I would have kept her up for another hour or so...).

Based on what I've read on her FB, she's got a huge church family rallied around her. A generous outpouring of food and clothing donations has already come in. People have already offered furniture. No place to put any of it yet, but she's working on it. As she wrote, she feels quite blessed, and hasn't felt any despair. She's confident that God is going to take care of things. She's staying with her best friend, and her kids are staying with their father (one of those times that joint custody is a real blessing). They at least have some stuff over there, including clothes and "things".

Many of us were friends with Phain when she was HNTing. And even after she quit. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I have to organize something. While her short-term needs are being taken care of, it's going to take months to re-stock an apartment to its previous condition. I'm thinking of some sort of PayPal thing, and buying gift cards for her. I don't know. Any ideas that you might have--I'd love to hear them. I'll be calling her over the weekend to see what we can do for her. I have no doubt that her friends in the church will be taking good care of her, but I hate feeling helpless from afar. I hope that you do too, and would be willing to fork out a few bucks to help her out. Some of you more than others--you know who you are...

I leave you with pictures from the fire, and this morning's aftermath. Pictures of the fire from someone I assume was a neighbor, or possible tenant. The aftermath pictures (click 'em to big 'em) were taken by her daughter...