Deja vu

Lori, called me last night.

As soon as I heard her voice, I knew something was wrong. Very wrong. It kind of went with the icky feeling I get sometimes that something very bad is going to happen. I hate it when that feeling comes over me.

She can't blog right now. Hell, she can't even answer emails right now. She can answer her cell phone. But not her home phone.

Friday night she was in the basement and she heard a horrible sound. She ran up the stairs and discovered flames coming from the attic.

A little over eight years ago she came home from school and found her house nothing but ashes in the basement.

At least it isn't as bad this time.

Last time because no one was home she lost her cat. But all the kids were fine.

Because she was home, she was able to get her cat out this time. But she hasn't seen it since the night of the fire.

Last time she didn't have to worry about little things. You know things like...how do you remove smoke from clothing. This time she does. That's good, right? At least there is a chance she can start over with more than just the clothes on her back, right?

Fuck. I'm still in shock.

That's my sister. How in the hell do I tell her that things will be okay. It worked last time. She believed me. Hell, I believed me.

I don't have the pictures of the kids when they were little now. I gave them to her last time so she could replace the ones that burned.

Anyway, that's the latest news.

Do I have any problems? Nope.

Will I bitch about needing to clean my home? Nope. At least I have a home.

And this morning when I came home from work, the clouds weren't hiding the mountains. There's serious termination dust on those mountains.

Even so, I kept thinking about Lori. Fuck. How in the hell can that happen twice in less than a decade?