fire update

The fire report is finally back on my parents home in Spokane... the official cause is that one of the movers from the Spokane moving company stacked boxes up against the gas fireplace in the family room. My parents are not at fault at all and it's what they thought happened all along.

My Mom said they have a list about 40-50 pages long with everything that was not salvageable and needs to be replaced. Keep in mind that absolutely everything in the house has been cataloged (I mean everything down to the contents of the refrigerator). My parents should be getting the salvaged and cleaned stuff late next week and will start the daunting task of actually trying to figure out if something is still missing and wasn't put on the "damaged and lost" list. Then they have to estimate the cost of each item - from original signed books and art to a bottle of mustard. Think about being married for 33 years and accumulating "stuff" and having everything you own packed into boxes by someone else and then having about 1/3 of those boxes burned in a fire...how in the world would you be able to figure out if something was missing or not or how much you paid for it 25 years ago? It's good that my Mom has time right now to completely devote herself to this task. She's really amazing at staying organized and being detail oriented, so hopefully this won't be too horrible. I wish I could take some time off and help her, but it just isn't possible right now and it makes me sad.

Their house is supposed to be completely renovated and ready to live in by September. They will either sell the house to the current buyers, or if these buyers back out they'll have to put the house on the market again and see what happens. It's still really weird to me that this actually happened to my parents. I guess it really does prove that sometimes bad things happen to good people and you just have to make the best of any situation.