One Year.

“Katie, you need to wake Michael up and you guys need to get here as soon as possible… a fire broke out in the building. I… I can’t talk, just get out here”.

Now I don’t know about you, but that is probably the best way to get someone out of bed at 5AM.

Running out of my apartment in a nightgown, coat, and rain boots, I immediately knew that what Luke said on the phone was an understatement. Michael and I ran out and the first thing we saw was an ominous black cloud hovering a few blocks away, right in the direction of his house. We had both been bedridden for three days with the stomach flu, so we ran as fast as we could, knowing our legs were a bit sluggish from minor atrophy. I remember looking at the cloud, which began to smell like sulfur the closer we got, and saying to Michael “whatever happens, everything is going to be alright”.

There are certain things that you prepare for in your life and there are things you just assume will never need a second thought. Maybe it’s not an assumption, but it’s definitely a hope. However, when you have to come face-to-face with something well out of the scope of anticipation, all you can do is adapt; that morning, we were forced to quickly adapt to the fact that everything we knew was about to change.

After the initial shock of watching memories, possessions and brick tumble to the ground in a heap of ash, I went into true Katie Torres mode. While Luke was trying to find someone to get him pants (his only possessions post-fire were boxers and his phone), I was in pragmatic mode of sending out the text messages, getting people up to speed, letting everyone know the boys were alive, and starting the donation process. I suppose in moments of tragedy, I’m incapable of sitting still and allowing myself to think. It’s just how I adapt to the reality of the situation— if I’m cooking, making calls, doing busy work, than the big black cloud of smoke gets put in a box and buried in the ground. It becomes a marker of something that’s passed, and I can choose to acknowledge it at my will.

It’s been one year since the fire. There was a lot that was lost that day, but somewhere in it all, so much was gained. When we left the police station, Aaron Monts, pastor at IKON, swept the boys away to his apartment, where he offered up his space until the boys could get settled. When we arrived at the Monts’ house, the Kittens had been there for an hour preparing breakfast, and Jarrod, another pastor, come over and emptied his pockets and unloaded a car full of clothes. That night, people within the IKON community brought over everything they had collected that day, which amounted to roughly 8 huge boxes full of donations.

An apartment full of possessions and the four walls that housed it all were lost that morning, but an undefinable sense of humanity and love from the community was found within the moments following.

In our lives, we hope we never have to prepare for tragedy. In fact, we plan on never having to prepare for it. However, when life works in its quirky way and you get your knees kicked out from under you, you’d be shocked how quickly the people around you can lift you back up. One year later, and I’m still amazed how quickly the boys adjusted to what happened, but how much quicker the community was in constructing a net of support, just in case they needed a few extra hands to hold them up. That morning, we all experienced a tragedy, but by night, we witnessed a miracle.