It all started with a thorn bush.

You never think it will happen to you, and when it does, it is the most surreal and crippling thing.  After knowing that my roommates were safe, I remember thinking on all the things that were likely turned to ash: my mission journals, my nativity collection from around the world, my Austrian dirndl, my artwork, the real pearl and real diamond earrings from the jewelry store my grandparents used to own. I had left my phone on the desk and therefore had to wait to use Dallin's phone to call anyone. When it was safe enough, the firefighters asked if there was anything we needed them to retrieve.  Dallin asked them to get our box of important documents such as passports and social security cards. Then they came out with every book in our office bookcase and almost every painting on our office wall.  I wept with disbelief. 

The next few hours are honestly a blur in my mind. The entire street of neighbors was crowded around us, offering us shoes and jackets since Dallin and I had fled barefoot. Before we knew it, boxes of donations were piled up in one of the neighbor's lawns: for Arlo cat food, a litter box, a cat carrier and bed; for us and the boys gift cards, cash, boxed and canned food, pots/pans/utensils, clothing, etc. Every time someone offered us new donations I began to cry. 

If you can describe a cat as being hysterical, then Arlo was hysterical.  Between seeing the house burn, smelling the awful black smoke, and being surrounded by noisy firetrucks and dozens of people, he was freaked out and trying so hard to get out of my arms.  I tried to put him in his donated bed and he bolted. For the next several hours the young women and primary girls tried searching for him.

I had left my phone on the desk, so Dallin and I took turns with his phone.  He was able to call Danny, who happened to be in South Jordan and was able to drive down.  I waited at least an hour before calling my sister or parents...what was I supposed to say? I would only worry them, and there was nothing they could do to save my house. But when I did call, my mom immediately called an old friend to get her on the first available flight, and my sister and cousins drove over.  I remember Paige and Nguyen crying when they saw us.  Nguyen hugged Dallin, asked if we were OK, and then asked if Dallin's computer was OK. "Yes, I got it out!" Dallin cried.  

Cooper was out of town with his fiance Kaeli, but her family showed up.  I cried when I told them what happened.  They offered us a place to stay until we got things figured out.

At one point I was shocked when the firefighters brought my phone out. It was black with soot but worked perfectly. I called my supervisor and one of my classmates to inform them of the situation and to ask them to get my class and clinic schedule postponed for the week. 

After a couple of hours, the firefighters finally allowed us to enter the house.  It happened because one of the firefighters said that there were fish swimming around in the tank, which I thought was a cruel joke. I had only just remembered that the fish tank was in the house and was devastated at the thought of them all burning alive or their tank exploding or what have it. He wasn't kidding.  I ran through the charred doorframe and saw a dozen fish and shrimp swimming at the surface.  Their lid had completely melted into the tank, the water was black, and giant chards of glass pierced up from the bottom.  Evie gave us a bucket filled with warm water and I took out as many as I could find alive with my bare hands.   The next morning, only three or four still lived, including the pregnant fish, so my sister took them to an animal sanctuary.

I remember feeling so relieved that everything wasn't completely reduced to dust that I was in a fairly pleasant mood as we walked around the house. My nativities had survived.  Some, though not all, of my souvenirs from my mission in Germany had survived.  My dirndl had been on a hanger in a Walmart bag.  Though the fire had completely discolored and ruined all the shirts hanging up next to it, the bag had melted off the hanger, causing the dirndl to fall to the ground and be protected from the worst of the smoke and heat.  My mission journals, though a mere few feet from the couch that had been reduced to a blackened frame, sat in the bookcase completely legible.  Yes, the leather bindings disintegrated at the touch, but the pages were safe.  Other books had pages scattered across the family room.  In the same room, the TV was melted beyond recognition. 

We walked around the block multiple times calling Arlo's name before he finally came out of hiding.  We brought him to stay at a friend's house for a few days. Arlo refused to eat, drink or go to the bathroom for days. I know the feeling. I couldn't sleep that first night, and I was angry at those who forced me to eat.  All I could do was sit in the bathroom crying and cursing myself for what I had done.  My chest ached from smoke inhalation. I was hysterical when I saw an advertisement from the local news app talking about a fire caused by "recreational fire ashes," because the news reported hadn't talked to me let alone asked if I consented to having this horrible tragedy that was my fault posted online. An equal invasion of privacy was finding out that some people went under to fence and broke into the ruins of the house a few weeks later. I know we abandoned everything, but it still just felt so dirty.

The next day, I went back with my mom, sister, Dallin and the boys to salvage as much as we could.  We were sunburned from so much time out in that yard working, but our neighbors were so kind and gave us food, waters, and a pop-up tent for shade.  To be honest it was a waste of time, if maybe it helped to give some sort of closure.  I took so many things out of the house only to throw them away that same week.  My clothes tore at the seam when touched, or had turned from green to pink or white to brown. Everything stank.  Everything in the kitchen was warped, shattered or melted, including hundreds of dollars' worth of cooking equipment. Anything that wasn't melted was ruined by smoke.  A family friend who experienced a house fire a while back told us that no amount of money spent on fire restoration could get the smell out. We spent hours digging around for our car keys as well as Cooper's, scared that we would try to dig through the rubble of the collapsed room and instead dig a hole into the fragile floor.  In the basement, the ceiling was weighed down by water and collapsed in several places.  We found Cooper's, but we had to get a new set of keys for our car before we could leave the state. Luckily, despite usually having a car in the driveway, all the cars were safe on the street. Danny's 1970s Canadian Bricklin had been sitting in the carport for a year, but out the blue the month before he had decided to drive it back to Arizona.

What we wanted to salvage, we left in Paige and Nguyen's garage before going to Arizona.

It's been two months, and I have nightmares frequently about burning houses down...my own house...the whole street... It's always my fault in the dream, like it was in real life. But yesterday I visited the house, now demolished, and found that the fire lilies had popped up.  They must have still been bulbs in the ground and had therefore survived.  I transplanted them from my old place to my new place, where I can see them out the window and wait for them to bloom. It's haunting in a way, but it's also beautiful.