May 30, 2001
I wanted to write to you because I have read the article about Paul and
Betty Neff.
On October 31st, 2000, just 7 months ago I lost my husband Dick 49, my
daughter Shannon 18, my son J.P. 10, my son Matthew 9, and my grandson
Donnie 23 months, in a house fire.
I never thought anyone could go thru a tragedy like mine until somehow
someone sent me a copy of their grief. We had 2 fires in one week but I
will tell my story the best that I can.
We had a fire at our home on Monday Oct 24th, no one was at home, and "Thank
God we said". My husband was at work, my boys were at school, my grandson
was at daycare, and my daughter and I were shopping.
This first fire at our home destroyed the inside of our house, so of course
we had our insurance adjustor come over that day and we also had other
family members over to our house. I thought this was just the worst day
of our lives.
Soon the town in which we live heard of the fire and people started to
help us. Some had brought clothes over and some had sent money. But we
were also reminded by everyone how fortunate we were that everyone was
all right. As the evening progressed we had to decide along with our insurance
adjustor what we were to do as far as living arrangements.
Here we were a family of
6, four of them children and nowhere to go. My husband Dick and I as well
as my sister and family were standing outside talking over what we should
do. My sister, Pat and her husband, Snookie have had a doublewide Mobil
home at Broadkill Beach for several years. The house is usually vacant
in the winter; we all would go down there in the summertime for BBQ'ss
and crabbing and such. My husband suggested that if it were all right with
my sister and her husband, that we go to their Mobil home and stay there.
The home was nice, bigger
then our house. It was three bedrooms, sat up on pilings about 10 feet
in the air, a wraparound deck, the creek and marsh lands behind the home
and a beautiful view of the Delaware Bay in the front of the home. My sister
and her husband said, "Yes, if that is what you want to do, then by
all means, it's your home for as long as you need it".
Of course we found out
by the insurance adjustor that our house would probably take about 6 months
to repair. So, with that in mind we decided to move to Broadkill Beach.
Dick was trying to make the best of a bad situation, he told the boys how
much fun we would have living at the beach. He would let them go crabbing
off the dock, he would take them 4 wheeling in his truck, so the boys instead
of being upset were becoming adventurous. My daughter was concerned about
taking care of Donnie and how he would handle the move, because he was
only 23 months, we thought he would be more confused because of his new
environment, but he handled everything nicely too.
Dick and I took the children
to Broadkill and started our plans for the next 6 months. The days were
long, stressful and hectic for us both. So many things had been lost in
the first fire that we didn't even know where to start first. Dick started
making phone calls for builders, and I started replacing things that the
children had lost in the fire. Clothes, school supplies, baby supplies,
just anything that you would take for granted around the house, we did
not have.
The community is which
we live, started to bring things to the beach house. We got so many phone
calls from people who just wanted to offer anything they had that we might
need. Clothes, toys, books, food, household supplies, the help from our
family and friends was overwhelming.
The boys J.P. and Matthew
stayed out of school for the first few days, it took them awhile to make
the adjustment, but they did such an excellent job. On Friday, J.P. went
back to school and he went to his first school dance. J.P. was in the 5th
grade, and he loved school, and had so many friends. This was his Halloween
dance, the first big dance for 5th graders. He went and he loved it, he
had such a great evening. Matthew of course, went crabbing with his little
friend that we had over for the evening. Shannon, my beautiful daughter,
bless her so, she was a typical 18 year old, she went shopping and shopping.
Of course it was necessary, because she did have to replace all her clothes
and clothes for her son, Donnie.
The first couple of nights,
Dick and I would just sit up till the late hours and discuss what to do
next, and what had to be done right away.
Dick was my rock, he was handling just about everything and he gave me
so much reassurance that things would be OK. There was one night that I
remember when I had started to cry to him about all the things the kids
had made me over the years, and how I had them hanging in the kitchen and
on my refrigerator. Those things that couldn't be saved, we had to throw
them away because of the smoke damage, and Dick said to me "Debbie,
just be thankful that we are all alive, and that we still have our children
to keep making us new things to hang in the kitchen and on the refrigerator".
He was right, I had to be
thankful that my children were alive and that no one was at home during
that 1st fire. On our 6th night there, the heater had quit working, and
we were in a family discussion with Pat and Snookie as what to do as far
as the heater. We had it worked on a few days before and everything checked
out fine, so we thought that perhaps it had ran out of oil, so Dick shut
the heater off, and we decided to use the kerosene heater that was there.
We had used it a few times in the mornings, so we knew it worked. That
same evening we had had my sister and her family there, because we were
discussing Donnie's birthday party which we were to have that following
Saturday. While she and her family were there is when the heater had quit
working, so I suggested to my daughter Shannon that her and Donnie go home
with her or to her boyfriend's mothers house to stay so that we would be
sure that Donnie would be warm thru the night. But, Shannon said "No"
that she would make sure that she and Donnie would be warm, so I said "Fine."
After my sister and her family
left, I told J.P. and Matthew that they needed to finish their homework
and get ready for bed, so that is what they did. I went into their bedroom,
they had bunk beds, Matthew up top and J.P. on the bottom and they had
all their clothes still on. I said, "What are you guys doing, get
your jimmies on, and get all those clothes off." But, J.P. and Matt
said " But mom, we want to be warm, we don't want to get cold in the
middle of the night." So, of course I told them o.k. And I told them
goodnight and gave them each a kiss and told them how much I loved them.
I went back into the living room and watched TV. with Dick, Shannon and
Donnie.
Shannon and Donnie soon went
to bed, and then I told Dick that I too was going to bed, I gave him a
kiss goodnight, told him that I love him and I would see him in the morning.
Sometime later Dick came to bed. Some time around 2 a.m. Dick woke me up
and said, "Debbie there is smoke in the bedroom, so I got up and looked
around and seen a hazy smoke filling the room. I touched Dick's shoulder
and said, "Honey, it's alright, we got time to get the kids out."
At that time Dick opened the bedroom door and the whole bedroom started
filling up with thick, black smoke. My eyes started to burn and I looked
out the bedroom door and the whole front of the house was on fire. The
flames were shooting up to the ceiling.
Dick seen the fire and
said "Oh my God," that was the last words I had ever heard him
speak clearly. I ran to the window in the bedroom and started banging and
banging, the window would not break, then I remembered that there was a
chair in front of the window and I picked it up and started hitting the
window again. It was so hard to breath, and my eyes were burning so badly,
I could not see a thing, I could only sense that I was at the window. Finally,
the window broke as I pushed one last time as hard as I could, and I fell
out the window onto the deck. I breathed air, finally. I got up and started
hollering into the window, shouting for Dick to come to the window. I thought
that he was right behind me, but he had gone for the children. I just kept
screaming that I had the window open; I was hoping he would hear me and
through my screaming it would help him to find the window to get out. I
ran around the deck to my daughter's bedroom window and started busting
that out, I screamed for her to wake up, I just kept shouting. "Shannon,
wake up, Shannon wake up, the house is on fire. I could hear Shannon in
the bedroom saying ssshhh, ssshhh, like she knew something was not right,
I think she thought that maybe Donnie was crying and she was trying to
soothe him. I could not get her to wake up, and I did not hear little Donnie
crying. I ran back to the other window and screamed again; still no one
was coming out. I ran to the other end of the deck and again busted out
windows, this time I remember the heat and the flames hit my face, and
I jumped back. I went to the other window again and this time I heard Dick
and J.P. talking, I could not understand what they were saying but at least
I knew they were still alive. I screamed again for them to come out the
window, and kept screaming so they would hear my voice and follow it through
the smoke. Still, they did not come out the window, more time went by and
the deck was on fire by this time.
Fire was all around me and
I heard things bursting and pieces of wood and the house were flying in
the air on fire. I looked down from where I stood and I knew I had to jump,
I pleaded with God to have mercy on me and I jumped and landed on the ground.
When I came to, I ran to the front of the house, but the only entrance
to the house had burnt away. I had no way to get back up to the house.
The fire, flames and heat were so intense that I was forced to cross the
street, helpless, all I could do was wait and scream for help.
Finally a police officer
arrived and then the fire trucks. I told them over and over that my family
was still in the house, I told them to get up there and help them, get
them out I kept shouting. After I was taken to the hospital covered in
black smoke and I remember the blood that was coming from my hands and
head and legs and I think at that point is when I went into shock.
I remember the fire marshal
coming into my room and telling me, "Mrs. Mitchell, you know the fire
was bad, and I am sorry to tell you, but you are the only one to survive,
they have all died." At that point all I wanted to do was die, I should
have died with my family, how could I have survived and they did not. If
they didn't make it, then I didn't want to make it either. I tried and
tried to save them, I thought that they would have made it and if I had
known then that they were going to die, I would have stayed up there and
died too. My will to live was gone.
It has been 7 months now,
and through hospitals, ministers, medicine, and family and friends, I have
made it this far. My strongest hold is God, thru him I am living. I have
put my life in his hands, I have told him to plan and make my path, because
I do not know which way to go, but I know it is by his hand that I am here.
The guilt that only a survivor knows, the loneliness, the pain and grief
are more then I can bear alone. But, with God's help, all things are possible.
I have trusted in the Lord now, more then ever, I believe now more then
ever. Who else could get me through such tragedy but God?
Although I am struggling
everyday, there is one scripture that gets me through more then any other.
"That the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory that is to be revealed to us"(Romans 8: 18).
I just wanted to write this letter and tell you my story, and to thank
you for in my time of need, your tragedy let me know that bad things do
indeed happen to good people. That none of us can be righteous enough to
stop death and tragedy from happening. I truly thought I was the cause
of this nightmare, I believed that I had done something so terrible wrong
that I deserved this to happen. God was punishing me for the things that
I did in my life or the things that I didn't do in my life.
We have all sinned and made
mistakes, but indeed, bad things do happen to good people, for this is
our world and it is a broken world that we live in.
By the Grace of God, I am still forgiving myself for surviving, and I keep
telling myself that it is o.k. to smile and laugh, because sometimes when
I do, I feel so guilty. I know that I have a long road ahead of me, and
that my days of sorrow are not over, the pain that I feel from losing my
family will be pain for many days to come.
I still seek answers, I
want to know why God did this, why did He let such a terrible thing happen.
Hopefully, someday I will get the answer, perhaps not in my lifetime, but
when He is ready to reveal it to me.
[ Dick
and Debbie's Photo Album - In Java ]
[ Dick and Debbie's Photo Album - Normal
- No Java ]
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