feng-shui-cafe

The Fire That Never Ends

November 18th, 2006

The other day my husband and I went to a deposition. In May of 2004, we had an apartment fire and pretty much lost everything. For so many reasons, we considered ourselves lucky. Sometimes luck, however, has its way of biting you in the butt…

It was May 1, 2004 at about 2am. I was in Puerto Rico having just completed a job, sleeping soundly. I had to wake in a few hours to catch an 8:30am flight home…

Meanwhile at the same time, back in NYC, my husband slept as well — until our smoke detector sounded. He leapt out of bed, searching our small apartment, and realized the air conditioner was belching smoke and flames. He threw on his trousers and went for help.

The short of it: my husband survived, our three cats were rescued, and our apartment was a black, charred smelly mess.

We spent the majority of early summer 2004 taking photos of and sifting through ‘the wreckage’ to determine what we’d lost, and looking for any undamaged receipts as proof of what we owned and how much it cost. Take it from me: whatever amount you have on your Homeowner’s Insurance Policy is too little….

As we embarked on the enormous task of assessing the damage, we sometimes discussed getting an insurance adjuster to assist us, but in the end decided we could and should do it ourselves. The insurance process took approximately two months. It was a frustrating and painstaking process. We were as thorough as we could be and although it paid off, it took a real mental toll. The paperwork had been time-consuming and once the claim was settled, I wanted to put it behind me for as close to forever as possible.

In August of 2004, reconstruction started. The process was slow and, again, frustrating. The contractor was still ‘finishing up’ around Christmas so we rang in 2005 with the promise of a clean slate.

It’s now the fall of 2006 and the insurance company’s (and our) lawsuit against the air conditioning manufacturer has come to the stage of preparation for court…

We were in an office last week, getting deposed and being asked questions we had tucked safely away in the backs of our minds. I was beyond the fire now but all the details had to be dredged back up. There were requests for receipts and other paperwork. Many of the emotions from the spring and early summer of 2004 rolled out of the safe I’d locked them in, and rose up in my throat. The thought of finding receipts again, of reading through all of the reports, sickened me.

I remind myself here and now: we all survived. We are the luckiest ones on the planet.

Entry Filed under: Zen chaos