Total Loss

My parents are living at a neighbor's house. They had friends who were out of town and they'd had the key to watch the house - they're now house-sitting involuntarily. They finally started eating a couple of days ago, but I think it was just the threat of Dad's doctor telling him if he didn't start eating they were putting him back in the hospital. They've not been sleeping either.

My father's sister went down this weekend to see if they could salvage anything. It was a total loss. They found my mother's inherited sterling silver silverware - but when they picked it up it was just limp. Her collector plates looked fine until they touched them, and they crumbled. The cement block that was part of the foundation also crumbled when touched. All the appliances were just shells. The second car exploded. The file cabinets my father kept all his tax records in were full of ashes.

The fire chief said it was so windy that day that the fire burned exceptionally hot. If it hadn't been so windy that day they might have saved the house.

My parents have decided they've had enough of Arkansas. They are going to move back to Iowa to be closer to me and my family - their grandkids. I'm relieved. They are so far away now that nobody can take off much time to get away and visit and they're pretty isolated except for other elderly people and that's not the best with them getting up in years. They still have friends in Iowa, too, that are looking forward to them being back.

What a tragedy. My mother keeps calling me to find phone numbers and addresses for her to let family and friends know. She lost her cellphone in the fire, so lost all numbers. Thank goodness for the i-net!

It looks like they are coming to live with us the end of the month - for about a month. They'll be here for the wedding and are going to look for a place to live. Hubby is none-too-thrilled, but what can you do? They are family, after all. Thank God we built this new house or I don't know where we'd put everyone!

With the wedding and my parents being here - I'm going to be insane by the end of March...