My house burned this morning

My house caught fire. My kids are safe, my dogs are safe. Two cats are safe, two cats are missing.
Two rats died, two rats were crushed and injured. My kitchen is destroyed. My house is smoke damaged.

My kids were home, and I was gone, working at the church nursery. My daughter woke up and smelled smoke. She opened the kitchen door and saw fire. A cat ran out of the kitchen into the house, we haven't seen him since. My daughter called 911, then she ran upstairs and woke up her brother, whose bedroom is right above the kitchen. They scrambled to get outside, grabbed a few dogs on the way, 2 dogs remained closed up in separate rooms.

The neighbors said flames were shooting up into the sky. My kids said there were explosions as windows buckled and burst. The weirdest thing, said my 15 year old son, was hearing the crash of dishes as shelves burned and collapsed.

The firefighters got my other two dogs out, and found 2 of my cats. They went into my stinky, dirty basement and heaved the rat cages up the stairs and out into the yard. The firefighters were amazing, kind and amazing. I keep picturing them pulling out those disgusting rat cages.
They were afraid we had a huge snake, because of all the rats, like we were breeding rats for snake food. I said, "no, we don't have a huge snake, we just made a huge mistake."

I am raw, and sad, and worried about money and feel so sorry for my poor old house.

But I am so grateful, and counting my blessings, and thanking God, my kids are alive. They came so close to death.

I called my mother and told her my houses caught on fire. She said, "well I hope you have fire insurance."
Not, "how are you?"
Not "did everybody get out okay?"
Not "oh, my God, I'm so sorry, tell me what happened."
My mother is probably kicking herself now. She does this all the time. A few days from now I'll get a very sympathetic letter from her.

Friends and neighbors have been incredibly generous, people keep bringing us food, and items we need like toilet paper and cat litter and paper plates and silverware and offering hugs, even though I'm covered with dirt and blood from where the kitten scratched me in his panic.

My mind is reeling - too much going on inside. If only, if only. If only I hadn't taken that nursery job, I would have been home, or maybe not, I might have been at church anyway...

It could have been so different. We might all have been gone, the house would have burned, and all our pets with it. Mary might not have awakened in time to notice the fire, and she and Davy might both be dead, or burned terribly.

No time for if only or what if. Just the facts ma'am: we are alive. And I am so thankful.