The fires in LA are crazy right now and so close to town it’s amazing. Not in a good way of course, but it is just amazing how huge they are. The noon news up here in Seattle showed the satellite pics from space and it’s huge. Awe inspiring, huge. I honestly don’t think I can remember seeing them this bad and I know the fires have been bad before. It’s possible I’m just hyper-aware of the fires because of our Chief’s death last year.

But most disturbing was the quick blurb about two firefighters that have passed away in the fire recently in a crash trying to get out of danger. I have a hard time hearing of any death in the fire service of course, but my heart weeps greatly to hear that one of them was weeks from becoming a Daddy.

I am sending this poor woman all my strength as she fights hard to overcome the worst days she could ever experience and the happiest as well. I can’t imagine her grief and if possible I would gladly be down there to try and help her in any way. I hope that she is tight with some other wives and the department so they are surrounding her with love as our department would.

I’m so afraid to go on to my Fire Wives forum. This started out as almost all Cal Fire and then some of us started infiltrating. lol But I’m afraid to get on there and hear it may be someone’s loved one as I know there are preggers on there and many, many hubbies on the cal fires. UGH, I hate this part. I hate it bad. I’m glad I had hubby’s good experience to post about yesterday.

Rest in Peace my brothers.

My heart and my families condolences go out to the Buffalo Fire Department today.  You have suffered a tremendous and horrifying loss. Know that you are not alone in your grief of two good men.

CNN story

I will completely warn you now, this will be a long post. Today commemorates one of my worst days ever. Not the worst, the funeral was the worst, but it’s right up there in the top 5.

Today was the day the pager went off for a general, important meeting. A meeting on 8am on a Sunday morning. There is only one thing that can’t wait until Monday morning and OMG who is it?

I can remember it vividly because I’ll be honest in this post. The night before we had an awesome house-warming party. I met a few more wives and it was so much fun. I was high on Diet Pepsi and not drinking for once. I was running people around on errands. Alcohol runs, food runs and we even ran to my friend’s Mom’s house to pick their kid up that night. lol I was on my diet pepsi roll and freaking everyone out because they still didn’t know me well enough to know that I wasn’t stockpiling blackmail. Goodness really? Believe me, I’ve left a lot around to blackmail me, I don’t do that.

So this leads me to the fact that in the morning I was feeling awesome and hubby was not. He had a huge hangover and I barely got him to check the page. He wasn’t with it so he didn’t really say anything about it, yes I may not be hungover, but I still really like to sleep. lol I didn’t ask, figured it was OT being called. Then the phone rang and of course I’m now listening. It’s one of our best friends and his wife is HR. They don’t have info, but he suggests that hubby gets in the shower and goes to the meeting.

While hubby is in the shower, his phone rings again and it’s his other best buddy. I talk to him a little bit to pass on messages. I understand that something major has happened and I’m so thankful, yes thankful and i will not regret it EVER, that we’ve now talked to our two boys and it wasn’t them. I will never apologize for that, you definitely start circling up and pulling in your loved one’s.

The kids weren’t even up when he got back from the meeting. We live in district and I don’t think he was gone 20 minutes. My hubby is not a crier. He’s the calm, cool, and collected, mellow guy. He couldn’t stop crying. I was worried how he even got home. OMG I didn’t want to ask. I really didn’t. I had so many people running through me head. I just knew it was someone from the party that I had let drive home. I totally knew it. I double checked everyone before they left, but I was so worried. I really didn’t want to ask, but he made me ask as I held him. You don’t hold up 6’3″ 265 very well when you are 5’7″. lol

He said it was Chief and again I won’t apologize for the instance of relief I had for it not being someone I am close to. I just won’t, I’m human and so are you. I was not close with the chief because we are still a little new, but it wasn’t my boys I’m with every week. I had that short spat of relief before it weighed in on me. OMG, our Chief is dead. Our chief that personally hired my husband just a little over a year ago. Our Chief that is involved in everything our department does and really knows what is going on. Our Chief that everyone loves and not a single soul ever has a bad thing to say about is dead. This man who has built an empire of a fire department is gone. It was huge, seriously, seriously huge.

Hubby has never dealt with death. His last close relative passed when he was 19 and he didn’t do well with it. I worry about our parents passing because he just has no concept of how to deal with the emotions. So I worried, I had no idea what to expect. I let him go back to bed to sleep. Our daughter was away camping with some friends for a week thankfully. I..was supposed to go to a beloved Great-Aunt’s memorial which is another story altogether. So I called my parents and they understand that I couldn’t explain what had happened yet (we were in media lockdown) but that I did need them to take the youngest. They totally understood that I just couldn’t go, that it was that bad. I also couldn’t tell my Dad as I didn’t want him going to one memorial and grieving a brand new death. It was one of the rare times later I’ve had my Mom thank me. She appreciated the fact that I didn’t tell my Dad. (fyi, my dad took it so hard he couldn’t even go to the funeral. Again, another story there)

So I dropped off the youngest and I hit the grocery store. I had no idea how hubby would take this. I bought and bought. I was ready to feed a family. In my family, we get together as many as possible. We get together and we hug. So I was prepared for that. I cooked like I’ve never cooked before. roflmao I joked about the Italian I didn’t know I had in me. lol I made so much food and I left it open to have everyone over. I asked if he wanted me to invite them over? Do you want me to call? No, he just wanted to hang out. We watched movies, we watched tv shows, we ate, we drank, we just WERE.

I had the internet up cause it always is. I’m an addict. lol But he had moved over and was laying on my lap so the laptop was on the coffee table. We knew they were only going to be able to keep the media off of it for so long and they had hit way over a usual mark. I’ll say kudo’s for the media for letting that happen, thank you. It is huge to have a Chief die on the job so to let us all deal a little before breaking in with the news was very human of you.

I remember him breaking down again as the text went out that they had returned the body to camp. This was well over 24 hours from the time he passed. This is how bad the story is. I will never post the story of his recovery and their rescue attempt as they did not follow procedure I’m sure. Hubby barely made it through telling me about it later when they found out. The jumpers went in to try and recover him immediately and I am so thankful that none of their lives were taken as he was most certainly gone at that point already. Smoke jumpers are true heroes and adrenaline junkies from hell. lol That’s a good thing

I digress! Told you this would be long. I had no room to deal with any emotions on what was happening. Except for the relief that it wasn’t one of my boys. I had only met the Chief a few times, he was an awesome man and really cared about everyone and LOVED his job. But I had no personal connection with him so I was able to back off a little bit and help hubby. Plus, it’s what I do. If you are hurting, then I shut my emotions off and I help you deal.

More to come and I recount the 2 weeks of absolute hell before the funeral happened. Our personal/relationship hell did not end after the funeral, it was well after that, but the funeral was horrible for me, truly, truly the worst day of my life, but yet again, the brotherhood that surrounded me after was so amazing it’s hard to focus on all that horrible. I’ll post happy tomorrow, I PROMISE!

It’s hard to believe that today marks a year since our Chief passed away. It’s been a year of many changes. Last August and September I honestly wouldn’t have thought I would be posting this as a fire wife. I was honestly getting worried I’d be an ex.

Dealing with this loss was tremendously hard on our relationship. It was so hard on hubby. Chief wasn’t all that much older than us and his girls are only teens and early 20′s. He and his wife had been together for a long time and were best friends as well. There were times I worried hubby would not stay in the fire service. He just never wanted to put us through what they were going through.

But I’m happy to report that after this horrendous and at times wonderful year, we have come out the other side stronger than ever. Our communication skills have increased 10 fold and I am now not afraid to tell him when things worry me. It helps him as much as it does me. My worry reminds him how much I love him, so he does need to know. I’m not the type to generally let people know because I’m the strong one in my family and always have been. I’m the one that is here for you and can take anything. But it broke that wall in our relationship that I had been building back up in order to deal with him doing the job he does.

It also made me seek outside help. This blog for example. I started this blog to help me work through the grief and to also try to stay sane on the nights and days alone. I also found the incredible Fire Wives forum to talk to other wives around the world. Both of these outlets have helped me tremendously.

There is a memorial today and they will commemorate a beautiful pond in his memory. I left it up to hubby whether he felt we should go. Thankfully he said no, he didn’t need to go. I don’t think we do either. Our consensus when he talked it out was that we have mourned enough. We have worked very hard to move past the sadness and we have. Neither of us wants to bring those tears back in again or that horrendous ache. Chicken way out? Possibly, but there were some that couldn’t go to all the things we did back a year ago. Everyone deals with death differently.

Ironically we have a big family BBQ today at my mother-in-laws. Our adult niece and nephew are supposed to be there. I’m excited to see loved one’s I rarely see anymore. I find it a very fitting way to pass this marker in our lives. Surrounded by loved one’s laughing and eating the day away!

It’s time to put some posts up for the exact reason why this blog came to be.  Dealing with the grief I couldn’t handle 9 months ago.

I know I’ve hinted at it and if you follow my Busy Momma blog then you have heard some of it, but no one else can understand except those that are in Fire.

9 months ago yesterday we lost our Chief to a wildland fire. The amazing thing is, it was a Sat that he passed and that sunday the 27th that we all were informed. I remember it being July 26th because remarkably that was my daughters due date 13 years prior. lol Not a date a Mom forgets, but now I’d like to let that date slip past unknowingly. Of course, it never will.

So as I walk around today on Sunday the 27th, and thankfully hubby is home, I will kiss and hug him extra. 9 months ago today he was so emotionally damaged I didn’t think he’d be able to continue. We were so broken on that sunday morning that I literally had nothing to do or say. We moved in a fog for what seemed like an eternity.

We came out the other side in a much stronger relationship, but neither of us will ever be the same for going through the experience. When an all call/general meeting goes out on a Sunday morning you know that nothing good is going to be said. You just start calling everyone to make sure that your closest loved one’s are not the reason for the pager going off and the important meeting. Oh how I hope and pray never to have to go through another time like that again. More will be coming, but I can only handle little bits as I do not want to bring this blog down horribly with it.

I know this blog is fairly new so there hasn’t been a chance to get to know much about me and how embedded I am in the services now. My good friend is a dispatcher. I have 2 very good friends that are police and they are in the fire service as well. Then I also have some others in my life through personal training that worry me as well because, of course, they are all swat. So they end up in extra situations that many don’t.

I try hard not to worry about everyone in my life in the police and fire, as it will do me no good. I know they are trained at the highest level, they look out for each other and above all, they are not stupid. But horrible people are out there and they are uncontrollable and unreasonable. My friend just told me on Friday about how a shooting went down 6 or 7 years ago with someone that I’m just starting to get to know. Thankfully they were in their swat gear still, but it was completely random and after they had their “guard” down and the event was supposed to be completed, suspect was in custody. The guy had just gotten out of jail and had a vendetta against them. It just brings back that horrible people are out there and we just never know. Thankfully no officers were killed in that event.

I weep for those of you grieving for your loved ones and send my most comforting thoughts to the entire area as you try to work through the loss. I can not even imagine the impact that losing 3 officers will have on this department. Especially veterans of so many years. My sincerest and deepest sympathies to the families of the officers. Extra hugs to your loved one’s. I know I will be sending some extra love to those in my life today in appreciation that they have made it safely through another day.

My sincerest condolences go out to everyone attached to the Boston Fire Department.  My heart goes out to each and every one of you for your loss today.  Know that you will be in our families thoughts as you go through this difficult time of mourning.  You are not alone in your mourning as this brings back very fresh memories of our Chief’s funeral.

Rest in peace Fire Lieutenant Kevin M. Kelley.  May your family find solace in the fact that you loved what you did.

For those of you that have not had the news prodcast anything about it as we have not here, you can go to Boston.com and read the article and watch the news video.