Cupid’s Shopping Guide Thanks: Parents of three write in on fire relief

FROM PAGE 14 mail like 20 minutes before, and there was no sign of anything wrong,” Lisa said. “I guess because it was in the back no one knew right away.”

Her voice breaking, she said, “Walking up to the house, not knowing what I was going to see... I collapsed in the street. Because all I could see was black ... inside the kidsʼbedrooms. And I was just thinking, What if we were home? That was all I could think about. I cry basically every single day.”

She said, “When you keep finding new information about what parts of the house were affected... you just canʼt help but think, What if we were home. You almost know the reality of what would have happened if you were. And itʼs the worst thing to think about.” She said “I know itʼs items that we lost. But my whole childhood was in the attic, and thereʼs no trace of anything in the attic. Itʼs just ash. So I donʼt have anything to give them of mine...”

Asked if they know how the fire started, Lisa said, “Idonʼt know if Iʼm allowed to say because the insurance end is still figuring out… it wasnʼt what they first thought; they thought it was the grill, because it was the deck. But it wasnʼt that.”

She said they had to shop for plenty of essentials the next day. “When youliterally have just what youʼre wearing, itʼs the craziest feeling…”

As for next steps, Lisa said she and Matt expect the family to be able to move back home to Henry Avenue by the end of the year. “That would be the best outcome.”

Asked how their folks are doing, she said, “Our familyʼs the same as us:grateful that no one was there. Everything could have looked a lot different.”

She said of the aftermath, “In the very beginning Matt was with his family and I was with mine, with the kids, and we figured out a place for everybody. And then once things settled as much as they could we were all able to stay together at my parentsʼ.”

She said, “Two of the three kids still woke up at night. So we were trying to figure out who could stay where without waking up a child —it was a little chaos in the beginning.”

Of the outpouring of support, she said, “Oh my gosh, so many people. Wehadnʼt even gotten a chance to meet hardly anybody, and then through this weʼve gotten the chance to meet so many nice people. We couldnʼt believe how nice. We had just gotten there but it didnʼt matter — they stepped right in and helped us without question.”

She added, “It was just... I guess we never expected that, but we never expected any of this.”

The Pattersons most recently lived in Oakland, but with the baby on the way they needed more space and were looking far and wide. A friend suggested an open house here.

Lisa said, “The market at the time was horrible, with bidding wars. We looked at the price and were like, I donʼt know about that.

“But of course we loved it after we saw it, and we did our best to make it work. We offered what we could — thank God they chose us.”