Some of the things that “had no value”
It’s been a few weeks and now I feel more up to talking about what happened to me lately. From the first shocking phone call to the last trip before it’s all gone.
One morning, I woke up quite early to the sound of the ringing. It was the police telling me that my cottage was on fire. They didn’t know more than that, but would call me back. Several hours later they called back and told me they had managed to put out the fire. I was in shock but the only thing that was on my mind was to go there and find out about the damage.
The police told me I wasn’t allowed to go there until the technical investigation was over and would call me back. The next day I heard from them again telling me that they were unable to conduct the investigation just yet, it needed to cool down first. By that time, everything was chaos for me. I wasn’t allowed to go there and no one knew anything.
A couple of weeks of waiting followed. It was Christmas and apparently they had so many fires to investigate and the insurance company didn’t have time to conduct their own investigation. Someone sent me photographs of the exterior. It was terrible to see your cute little cottage in that state. The kitchen window was hanging half way out in the garden all black. Where the newly built extension had been was only a pile of burned something. The small new windows in the newly repaired attic were crashed and the room inside seemed all black. I cried.
I was finally allowed to go there, when they insurance company came to assess the situation. The first time I was able to see for myself was a shock. The pictures I’d seen were nothing compared to seeing it with my own eyes. It wasn’t just the kitchen window. Half of the kitchen was gone and so was half of the attic. It was almost surrealistic watching it snow where I used to cook.
Next shock was to see the living room. No one can imagine the horror of seeing their belongings all black in a totally black room. The soot was covering the floor, the walls and the ceiling as well as some of the furniture. What used to be wallpaper and paint was hanging in black stripes from walls and ceiling. My mind was went almost blank as I followed the woman from the insurance company around. “Not worth saving”, “It needs to be torn down”, “Not of any value”, “Not insured highly enough” were some of the bits and pieces I managed to pick up.
NOT Of ANY VALUE! This was my cottage she was talking about. It used to be my home during my time at the university. It had value, a lot of value to me. I started to see everything with her eyes. Of course I wouldn’t be able to save anything from that disaster. I left there with only a few keepsakes from the undamaged room and the knowledge that the cottage would have to be torn down and that I wouldn’t get enough money to rebuild it.
I wasn’t in any shape to do anything for a long time. Christmas was coming and I tried to block out everything that had to do with the fire until after the holidays, but first day after Christmas I found some people that could help me move my smoke smelling furniture from the cottage. They were amazing. They worked fast and were very nice to me when I pointed at all the black things that I wasn’t ready to part with. When I finally had all the furniture home I started to think more clearly. What I had been afraid of was burned and damaged wood was just soot. Most of it cleaned off really easily and the rest can be repainted. So much for no value…
Then the next problem occurred to me. I had a lot of textiles in my drawers. The wood had taken up so much water when they tried to put out the fire that I couldn’t open them. I knew that if I waited until spring to get them opened, I’d lose what was inside them. So for weeks now I’ve tried to warm the drawers enough to open them. Yesterday I managed to open two of them. Only two left now. Just hoping it won’t be too late. Some of the textiles had started to smell funny and that wasn’t from the smoke.
The day before yesterday I went to see the cottage one last time before it will be torn down. I wanted to make sure that I had brought everything that was worth saving only to realize that I had forgotten more than I thought I had. The chest of drawers with the marble top for instance that I had believed was beyond saving was actually not damaged at all. Sooty but not burned. I filled my rucksack with all the little things that were left and moved the furniture to the barn. I don’t have a car and will wait until spring to bring the last things to my mother’s home. I was happy to see that the two stools that my late grandfather had built weren’t too badly damaged.
Yesterday things sort of fell apart for me. I thought it was all over. That I had actually handled all the difficulties pretty well. I spent most of the day crying and wasn’t able to do any of the things I had planned to do. I think that all the tension I had felt the last weeks left me and I started to feel again. The crying was good for me. It was like I had a good cleansing that was washing away all the sadness. There were actually things to be grateful about. No one was hurt. I was able to save a lot of things from the cottage and even though I won’t get money enough to rebuild it. I still have the land. And the money I’ll get from the insurance will improve my difficult financial situation a little. I’ll survive this:)
