My Miscarriage Story: The Passing Clouds of Grief

I love October! Despite the fact that I live in San Antonio, Texas, where fall is nowhere to be found, Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. This year, October has been especially good to us, because Jordan is FINALLY done with his last 8-week rotation at Ft. Hood; this is significant because Jordan has basically been away from us for 6 months, since the end of April. He started his 2nd year residency 8-week rotation at Ft. Hood back in April, then it was 8 weeks of night shift where he was practically a zombie and nonexistent, and now he's finished up the last 8 weeks at Ft. Hood again. This was certainly a trial for us, but we are so glad it's done! I am definitely grateful for October! 

There is a new reason why October has become so significant to me. October is infant and pregnancy loss awareness month, and I couldn't let this month go by without acknowledging our own loss. Back in June, when I was finishing up nursing school, I had a miscarriage at 7 weeks. I didn't reach out to a lot of people because I didn't want anyone to know that we were trying to have a baby and logistically I knew that we could try again soon after the miscarriage, since it was confirmed it was not a molar pregnancy and I've never had a hard time getting pregnant. The timing of the miscarriage was especially cruel, as I miscarried the day after I presented my Miscarriage Nursing Capstone Project to a group of OBGYN doctors.  I didn't realize that the advice I was giving to those doctors, was the same advice I would be using for my own miscarriage, and that I would become part of the stories I had collected for my project. It was my last week of school and the next week Jordan had time off and we'd planned a mini stay-cation. For a while, I felt as though this loss wasn't just the loss of possibility and hope, but also the loss of my joy during what should have been a really happy time of Jordan being home, the accomplishment of completing my capstone project, and finishing school. While we continued on with our normal plans, everyday I was grieving about the miscarriage, and it cast a shadow on my life for a time. I wrote in my personal journal a few days after the miscarriage, "I am working so hard to be happy, but at the end of the day, for now, I'm still grieving. Maybe one day I'll look back and this week will mean nothing to me; not happy or sad, just forgotten, but right now it consumes me. I'll keep trying to be happy, but please don't judge me if the sadness leaks through. I can't help it and right now I don't want to. I just want to keep feeling these emotions until they pass through, like clouds darkening the sun. I know it's there, but for now all I see are clouds." 

At 7 weeks, I didn't expect the physical pain of miscarrying to be so severe. At first, the cramps felt like a period, but then the cramping turned into pain similar to contractions, and it really surprised me. I clung to the story of another woman who had gone through a miscarriage, as her doctor validated her feelings about the loss. He said, "It's ok to be sad. A baby is still your baby no matter how far along you are." Experiencing the loss of my pregnancy was a different kind of pain and emotion that is hard to describe. For me it wasn't so much of the physical loss that was hard, but the emotional loss. One woman who also shared her miscarriage story with me said, “it’s the loss of a child, a plan, a vision of the future.” I hadn't expected to get pregnant so quickly, and I hadn't expected my pregnancy to be over so soon.

Jordan and I are grateful to the people who comforted us during this time. If we didn't reach out to you, know that we are aware of your love as we went through this very personal experience. I am so grateful that Jordan was home during the beginning of my miscarriage. He had been gone so often, it really was a blessing that he happened to have time off right around then. 

We were lucky to get pregnant soon after the miscarriage and are grateful for our rainbow baby. While we feel happy and excited about this new baby, each week of my pregnancy I have carried a bit of anxiety on my shoulders. I've counted each week carefully. We made it to 6 weeks, then 7, and then we were past the time of my previous miscarriage. We made it to 8 weeks, when all of the major organs are developed, and then to 11 weeks, when I saw the heartbeat and my little bean for the first time; and now we've made it to 14 weeks, where the chances of miscarriage drop significantly. I am aware that despite the modern medical miracles science has brought to us, babies may still not survive through the pregnancy. I've known women who have delivered stillborns, women whose babies have had severe defects and only lived for a few hours or days. I have wept for those couples and women who have gone through such a loss. 

The amazing thing about pregnancy is the hope that each week brings. While there is a possibility that the outcome may be undesirable, I choose to "dwell in possibility" of hope and life. I cannot answer why these things happen, only that each person must go through their own trials and hardships. I can say that I have so much more empathy for the women and couples who have gone through pregnancy or infant loss. I can reach out and be a comforting hand during a time of grief and pain. I can open up and talk about my own loss and the pain I felt, and I can tell you that my pain was real. I can tell you that those dark clouds do pass, and you will see the sun again and feel it's warmth shine on your face. There may be days when clouds come again, but they won't be so threatening or they'll pass quickly. To all those women and couples who have or will go through miscarriage, I just want to say that I'm so sorry for your loss, it sucks, and I'm here for you.
 

 

Fanning the Fire: My Health Journey

Growing up, I was never really physically fit. I participated in tumbling and cheerleading, but I never really made physical fitness or nutrition a part of my life. By college I weighed around 108-110 and I wasn’t quite the size I wanted to be for a girl who was petite and 4 feet 10 inches tall. My first year of college was great for my weight, but not so great for my physical fitness and my nutritional choices were far from healthy. I went to school part-time and worked part-time and was so poor, with so little time on my hands, that at times I had no money or time to go buy groceries or eat. I recall when I worked as Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) in a geriatric long-term care center how I would pilfer uneaten food off of my patients’ plates after they were done, because it was the only food available to me.

About halfway through my first year of college I noticed that I had slimmed down and my pants were looser. I now weighed around 103 pounds and was feeling especially good about myself. Instead of gaining the Freshmen 15 I lost it! In February of 2009, I met Jordan Gisseman, whom I would later marry. I slowly gained the weight back and by the time we married in 2010 I was around 110 pounds again, and still not very physically active. The first year of marriage was not as kind to me as my freshmen year in college. I gained another 10 pounds and in 2011 when I got pregnant, I was around 120 pounds. Living just a couple blocks from Little Cesars didn’t help either.

I gained the typical amount of weight during my pregnancy, but I was really feeling the effects of being overweight early on in my pregnancy. I had acid reflux pretty much from the very start, which I now attribute to my weight and not as much to the pregnancy. I remember going on walks with my husband and I was extremely slow. If I tried to go faster, I would literally start huffing and puffing. By the time my first child was born, I weighed around 150 pounds. I had to have a cesarean delivery and was barred from doing much physically activity until I was 6 weeks postpartum. Initially I lost weight after my baby was born, but my bad eating habits and physical inactivity continued and I was up to around 150-160 pounds. I don’t remember the exact number, as I think I’ve blocked it out. That moment in my life was the dark period.

While I was pregnant, we didn’t have a full-length mirror, and I remember going maternity bra shopping and seeing my pregnant body for the first time and bursting into tears. Instead of my stomach being round, it had loose skin hanging at the bottom (which I now know is called a pannus) and I had sooooo many stretch marks. I was far from glowing and disgusted with my appearance. After I had the baby, my physical appearance did not improve. I tried to go on walks with my daughter, and incorporate some physical fitness in my life, but I was lost. Physical activity had never been a part of my everyday life and I had little knowledge about healthy eating. I was told that breastfeeding would help me lose weight (of course that wasn’t the sole reason why I tried breastfeeding), but my baby and I struggled with nursing and that ultimately failed after 3 months when I went back to work now as a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN). I was stressed out learning a new job, learning how to be a parent, and depressed with my physical appearance and how low-energy I felt.

            I had been complaining about my weight for some time, but I had never changed my behaviors or lifestyle. As I had done many times before, I looked at my body in my full-length mirror, the body of someone who was overweight and had just had a baby, and I hated it. I was repulsed by my appearance and I couldn’t fathom how my husband could still say I was beautiful, when I felt so ugly. As my weight increased, my spirits sunk. I fell so low that I think I hit one of those rock-bottom moments. I knew I had to change. I was too young to feel so out of shape, to be unable to walk up a slightly inclined slope, or ride a bike up a hill without running out of breath and steam. I knew I had limited my body from working at its fullest capacity. I had done this to myself and it was a hard realization. I got myself into this mess, and now it was time to get out of it. I could not live my life like this for one more day.

            I started using the app MyFitnessPal back in 2012 after my daughter was born. I found Zumba classes and fell in love with them. It was then I met Shantelle Flake, who was a Zumba instructor. I started talking to her and she told me about a weight loss and maintenance program that was then called Take Shape For Life. I talked to my husband Jordan about doing the program. I thought it was sure to help me lose weight because the food would be provided, you would make your own lean and green meal for dinner, and there was supposed to be a curriculum on maintenance and how to live healthy after you lost the weight. Ultimately, Jordan helped me realize that we were too poor to afford a program like that at this point and that I should continue using MyFitnessPal as a weight loss tool and really give it my all.

By June of 2013, I had only lost about 4 pounds, but I was seeing some progress, which encouraged me to continue. We moved to Houston in July so Jordan could attend medical school at Baylor College of Medicine, and I was excited to learn our new apartment complex had a workout facility. We quickly made friends through our church and started to be invited to get-togethers. One of the early get-togethers was a swim party and I felt so embarrassed in my swimsuit surrounded by girls who were skinny and athletic. This new start fanned the flames that I had ignited only a few months prior and I really started to dedicate myself to losing weight. 

I used my apartment workout room, and started doing Zumba and other workouts at home through YouTube videos. I really dedicated myself to tracking my calories in MyFitnessPal and allowed myself 1200 calories for my height, BMI, and weight. I wasn’t always perfect in limiting myself to that many calories, but I persistently tracked my calories and strove to be on track the majority of the time. On average, I was losing about 4.5 to 5 pounds a month. By the end of December 2013 I had lost 25 pounds!

I was resolute in my desire to not only lose weight, but to maintain it. I had the realization that losing weight and hitting my weight loss goal wasn’t the end-all of what I hoped to achieve to be physically fit. I was enjoying how I looked and had such a confidence boost, but I also realized how much better I felt. I had more energy and could work out without feeling rundown. I had a huge mental boost and I was happier. I had gained self-control and the ability to deny myself foods that were unhealthy or unnecessary (I still indulged in lots of treats though). I wanted fitness to be a part of my life. By 2014, I managed to get down to 106 pounds, but struggled to maintain the weight. Maintenance was uncharted territory for me and I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I continued to track my calories, but I didn’t know what a normal calorie amount was for someone my size. I jumped up and down in weight from 110 to 115, while once again working and going back to school for my Associates degree in nursing.

 By the end of my RN program, I was pregnant again and had gained 8 pounds in my first trimester due to the stress of being in my final semester. After I got pregnant the second time, I’m ashamed to admit I bawled big fat tears because I was going to gain the weight back that I had struggled so long and hard to lose, and I was nervous I wouldn’t be able to lose it again like I had before. After my program ended, my life calmed down and I was able to focus a lot more on eating right and physical fitness. Instead of using pregnancy as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted and to quit working out like I had in my first pregnancy, I continued to monitor my calories. I hardly felt pregnant until the baby moved, and I had no morning sickness. I had gotten a gym membership before I got pregnant and a friend started showing me how to weight-lift and I decided to continue with it through my second trimester, along with Zumba.

 I felt amazing my whole pregnancy and I did Zumba every week up until I had the baby. I literally did Zumba the night before my son was born and joke that I danced myself into labor. I weighed around 140 pounds by the end of my pregnancy in November, and by December I was already down to 125 pounds just through losing water weight and baby weight. The difference between my two pregnancies had been night and day, and I attribute the ease of my second pregnancy to the fact that I really focused on my physical and nutritional health. I also feel like it was much easier to get back into working out and to lose weight after I had my second baby, despite having to have another C-section. By October of 2017, I was back down to my pre-baby weight, just shy of a year after my son was born.

Using MyFitnessPal was losing its charm and I fell into the habit of tracking my calories without really knowing how many calories I should limit myself to and I often fell off the wagon. For the next year and a half, I continued to go up and down in weight as we moved again, this time for my husband’s residency, to San Antonio, and I started school…AGAIN…to obtain my Bachelor Degree through an online RN-BSN program. I had always dreamed that I could get back down to 106 and I was sick of bouncing between 110 and 115, as the higher end of that weight range was much closer to an overweight BMI. I felt that if I could get down to 106 and bounce between that and 110, that I could hit my ideal weight range. 

I know that through the years I have really focused on calories and weight loss, but MyFitnessPal has really helped me and I have continued to see results with it when I use it correctly. Not only have I focused on calories, but through the years I have incorporated healthy meals and foods into my diet. I have continued to make physical activity a part of my life and have gotten more into weight-lifting. This last February, after trying and failing to lose weight, I realized that I needed to change my tactics. I reconfigured how many calories I would need to consume in order to lose weight at a healthy rate, and at the end of February, I started a 7-week health and weight-loss challenge that would hopefully get me down to 106 by my birthday, April 18^th. I told myself that at the end of the challenge, the number on the scale wasn’t what mattered, but that I finally was consistently losing weight and getting closer to my goal. If I did not meet my goal weight by the end of the challenge, I would continue to try until I hit that weight.

 In order to change up my weight-loss tactics, I created a weekly spreadsheet to track my project that included charting whether or not I ate breakfast, how many calories I consumed at each meal and whether or not I chose to have a snack or treat, how much water I was drinking, and how much I was sleeping, as well as if I was saying a bedtime prayer, and if I was meeting my workout goals and going up in the amount of weight I could lift. I tried to make my goals easily attainable and to include positive, healthy goals that didn’t just have to do with calories, but incorporated other areas of health, such as spiritual and mental. This chart really helped because it gave me a second way to keep myself accountable and also helped identify any patterns in my behavior that caused me to overeat and to find areas where I struggled.

At the same time I started this challenge, I was speaking with my therapist about going on a medication to help with my bouts of depression and near-constant anxiety. I had been seeing a therapist for the last year and a half and had developed many coping skills and had made many behavioral changes, but I still always felt on edge. I felt I needed to at least try medication at this point to see if it would help me. I got on Wellbutrin and I noticed the effects a couple weeks into using the medication. I suddenly enjoyed the small things in life and could enjoy my kids like I had never before. Things that would have normally bothered me or had me stressing and over-worrying about, I was able to shrug off. I felt a great weight lifted off of me mentally, and I think the decision to utilize medication to help me mentally helped me to overcome the huge mental hurdle I’d been having with weight-loss.

By my birthday I weighed 107 pounds, 1 pound shy of my goal and I. Was. THRILLED! I had struggled so long to get under 110 pounds, and here I was, so close to the weight I had lost all hope of seeing again! True to my word, I continued to work on my weight loss and less than a month later I reached my goal of 106…and then slipped into the 105 range only a couple days later! Before reaching my goal, I really worried about how I would maintain the weight after I hit my goal. I did some research and decided that what I needed was a solid calorie amount to shoot for each day and determined that I could probably maintain my weight if I ate around 1400 to 1500 calories. Having a solid number to keep me on track has really helped me to maintain! It feels good to track my calories, because instead of floundering around, not knowing what I needed to maintain and inputting my calories without a real goal, I now have something positive and solid each day to shoot for. I’ve been able to maintain my weight for the last couple months and have even been losing a bit still.

Not only have I done well with maintaining, but being physically fit has really become part of who I am. I went on vacation to visit family out of state for a month, and didn’t like the idea of not being able to go to the gym for a month. I decided to call around to the different gyms in the area I would be staying and see if I could find a reasonable price for a month pass. Luck was with me and I was able to score a FREE month pass! The whole trip I made the most of this pass and went to the gym each week at least a couple times. It felt so good to be able to stay within my normal workout routine and still work on my weight-lifting and physical fitness goals. This is a prime example that I have changed my health behaviors for the better. 

Something that has really stuck with me that my therapist and I talked about in regards to food is that food is used to fuel us. For me, I had viewed food as an aid to help me feel better when I was sad or upset or stressed. Food was at every party and it was more than socially acceptable to not just have one piece of cake, but two! Parties and get-togethers were considered areas where I could over-indulge and no one would judge. My therapist helped me see that food was something we used to energize us and make us feel better. She challenged me to consider how I might feel afterwards if I consumed a certain food. Did I need that food to feel energized, or was it simply excess? If I wanted the food, was it worth the cost of how it might make me feel later? Was I listening to my body as I ate to tell me if I had had enough? These last couple of months I have really changed my behavior and perception of food. I use it to fuel me and have found other things not associated with food to comfort me when I’m emotional. At parties, if I want cake (or any treat), I’ve learned that I don’t need a big piece or to even eat the whole piece to feel the satisfaction of the treat. I’ve tried to integrate these behaviors into my daily life. I listen to my body to tell me if I’m full and often try to only eat half of a meal, sometimes less and sometimes more, depending on how I feel. I’ve really changed my relationship with food to one where I’m the master and not the servant. Food is a tool I use to make my body feel better, and if it doesn’t feel better after I eat, then I need to change what I’m doing.

These last years have shown me how interconnected all the areas of health are. It is much harder for me to make changes when I’m mentally sick. It’s hard for me to feel the Spirit and be spiritually healthy when I’m mentally down. When I make myself physically sick with food or inactivity, it makes me mentally sick. It’s not easy trying to find the balance of being healthy in every area, but I can say that I am getting closer to it every day as I constantly strive to improve myself. We make the decision every day, either consciously or subconsciously, whether we’re going to let ourselves slip away, stay stagnant, or improve. We’re going to have good days and bad days and sometimes there will be hurdles to jump over or a wall that stands in our way, but our human will determines whether we will let these things permanently affect us for the worse, or whether we can figure out how to overcome these obstacles and make our weaknesses strengths.

I still can’t say how exactly I’ve managed to summon up the motivation and self-determination to lose weight and to change my health lifestyle for the better. It’s probably a multitude of variables that look different for me with each change I’ve made in my life. I can say that without my ability to act, change would never have happened. I made a reachable goal that had a reasonable timeframe. I created a plan to help me reach that goal and tracked my progress. When I fell off the wagon, I didn’t stay down. I got back up EVERY. TIME. Just because I fell off, didn’t mean that it was time to quit. The point of change isn’t to reach a goal, but in recognizing the process in learning how to change. That insight gives us a deep understanding of how we work as individuals. We have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

As in weight-lifting, discomfort means growth, and we have to appreciate the discomfort.  Not only that, but we have to really be aware when something isn’t working and strategize how we can do things differently so we can be more successful. Alison Faulkner, from the Alison Show or Awesome with Alison, once said something along the lines of when we constantly do the same thing, without acting or changing our behavior, that becomes our story, so if I were to constantly complain about my weight to people, but never act or do anything about it, that becomes my story, my boo-hoo tale that I can cry to people over and over again. I didn’t want my inability to lose weight or to make healthy choices to become my story. I wanted to change my life and make it better. As I was searching through my photos, trying to scrounge up some full-length photos of myself and my weight-loss/healthy journey, I find it interesting that the last couple of years I have no full-length photos that track my weight loss. Instead, the photos I've found show me living my life, doing the things I love, and some big life-growth moments. I realize now that I've been able to stop obsessing over my negative image and really love myself these past couple of years. I've been able to live life to the fullest and really enjoy my life and the people in it...and I still really enjoy food! That will never change! 

From all of this, I have learned that these changes and goals are just pieces and parts of my health journey. When I imagine my future, I imagine myself eating yummy foods and not getting sick because I over-indulged or ate something that wasn’t good for me. I imagine going on trips with my family and my husband and being able to keep up. I imagine being a grandma and still being able to chase after my grandkids. I am still learning how to improve, but my passion for change and growth has never subsided and I have always fed that desire for change and knowledge. I have fanned the flames that have driven my life to this journey of improvement. My fire may dim and sometimes my fire may be a roaring blaze, but ultimately, I control whether my fire lives or dies, whether it gets smothered or becomes an uncontrollable inferno. We can never stop fanning the flames. We can never be lulled into complacency. We’re either living, or we’re dying. So, do you want to carry out this journey determining each day to live and be happy, or are you only thinking of the end goal, never appreciating the growth, never desiring change, only thinking that one day you’ll be in the ground, and what will it have mattered? We need to take care of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so that we can "run and not be weary; walk and not faint." 

Historical Fiction Short Story: The Great Chicago Fire

It's been quite a while since I've written anything fiction! I've been stuck writing professional papers for the past few years due to school. My U.S. History class gave me the opportunity to write a historical fiction short story and I was amazed once I picked my topic how quickly my story came together and flew from my mind onto the paper. I've missed this! The historic part of it was really cool as I researched the Chicago Fire of 1871 and even my characters! I felt so emotional as I wrote about this experience, maybe because it was a little too close to home with so many of my friends who had experienced Hurricane Harvey; if we hadn't moved the year before, that could have been us in the midst of the disastrous hurricane! I'm pretty pleased with my little story and wanted to share it with you! The characters are fictional, but for the most part the places mentioned, the statistics cited, and the timeline and conditions are based on fact. Enjoy! 

A Short Story by Kayla Gisseman

A work of historical fiction detailing the events of the “Great Chicago Fire of 1871”

The Fire of Judgment

I shut my eyelids tight together, willing them to stay closed and to finally go to sleep, but there was no helping it. My mind was filled with worries and I rolled out of bed, silently groaning in frustration. I dressed as quietly as I could, careful not to wake up the children sleeping on the floor next to our bed. Little Shea and Molly had fallen asleep quickly without a care in the world, but Cadee had stayed up until an hour ago, worrying along with me. Their father and my husband, Shea, was out in the night watching the fire that steadily grew warmer and brighter, like the rising of the sun, turning night into day.

I sighed again and grabbed a cloth, quietly dusting our home again, my hands needing a chore to keep them busy. Our home, if you could call it that, was in a small village of Chicago where the Irish folk had settled. Conley’s Patch was a tightly packed community with meager wooden shacks that hardly passed for houses. Shea was still looking for a more permanent job so we could finally get ourselves a nicer home. Well, small or not, this was still my home and I had taken great pride in keeping it spotless and decorating it. We were snug in our home and I felt a small joy as I looked at my sleeping babes; at least they were content.

            Cadee stirred, her eyes fluttering open.

            “Ma, has Da come home yet?” Cadee whispered, sitting up, her covers falling down.

            “No, darling. Not yet.” I looked towards the door, feeling my chest tightening with worry. I opened the pocket watch and noted the time was close to 11:30 p.m. I suddenly heard footsteps outside and our door flew open, Shea standing in the doorframe, a cloth over his face, looking out of breath and wildly around the room. He looked me straight in the eyes and I knew there was trouble.

            He looked at Cadee and then back at me. “Breena, a word with you outside.”

            I nodded and he turned quickly on his heel, disappearing out the door. I grabbed my shawl and a cloth to cover my own face and gave Cadee a stern look. “Stay inside.”

            I followed Shea around the house and he put his hand on my shoulder, leveling his eyes with mine.

“Breena, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to stay here much longer. The fire is getting out of control. It’s already gone to Bateham’s Mills! I don’t think the river is going to stop it, not with this wind and drought. We’re sitting here like tinder and brush.”

            We hadn’t had much rain since July. It had been very dry the past few months. I could feel the heat in the air and see the sparks from the fire. We weren’t the only people outside, which is partially why I had had such a hard time falling asleep. People had been running around raucously bringing news about the fire since it started at the O’ Leary’s barn only two hours ago. Folks had already been overly excited by the fire from the following evening. That fire had been stopped by the river and I was hesitant to leave. This was our home, no matter how humble. Today was God’s day. We had gone to our church service earlier that day and the children had played with the neighbors. Surely God would protect us and see that the river stopped the fire.

            The dry wind whipped through my hair and I removed the cloth from my mouth to speak to Shea. The cloth did little to keep the smoke from entering my nostrils and my head was already aching.

            “Shea, no! It will be all right. We just have to have faith.”

            Shea shook his head emphatically, throwing up his hands. “Breena, God’s not going to stop this fire. It’s up to us to save ourselves.”

            My eyes filled with tears, partially from the acrid smoke and partially from the thought of leaving.  We had only lived in Chicago for a few months. It was supposed to be a city of opportunity! Chicago was experiencing constant growth and prosperity and perhaps one day it would even rival New York in all its splendor and industry!

            A man was suddenly hollering down the street. “It’s jumped the river! It’s heading towards the Gas Works! It’s comin’ right for us!”

            Even as the man screamed the news, people could visibly see the fire now, too close for comfort.  The excitement and assurance of safety instantly gave way to panic and mayhem. Shea and I barely looked at each other before we both ran into our home, urgently waking the children.

“Cadee, we have to leave. The fire is coming. Grab some cloths for you and children to put around your face.” Cadee looked at me with wide, scared eyes, but instantly jumped into action. My oldest girl was only nine, but she had always been my second pair of hands. I grabbed some clothes and shoes, stuffing them into a bag, and not bothering to dress the children. Little Shea was six and Molly was three years old. They were both groggily rubbing their eyes, unaware of the danger that edged ever closer to us outside, like an angry, spitting, fiery demon.

“Shea, our chest!” I wailed as I looked towards the wooden box that held the only material things I valued.

Shea looked at it. “Leave it. Take only what we can carry.”

I swallowed back a sob and squared my shoulders. I couldn’t give way to my emotions, not in front of the children. I grabbed Molly and carried her, while Shea picked up Little Shea and Cadee grabbed on to the crook of her father’s arm.

We burst outside, instantly shocked by the scene in front of us. People were running, trying to grab things, and waking up neighbors and family members. It was absolute chaos.

“Where do we go?” I asked Shea in a panicky voice, not wanting to be here a second longer.

“Towards the lake.” He replied resolutely, turning our family away from the fire. We ran as fast as we could and the fire seemed to chase us. I struggled to carry Molly and keep up with Shea and I could see Cadee stumbling. I worried that we would lose him in the crowd.

“Shea slow down!” I yelled desperately, but also as a warning.

He looked behind us and I saw his eyes fill with fear. Shea was never afraid. The fire was so close it was practically licking our backs. It was hot as Hell.

An extra surge of strength filled my body and we all ran faster, bumping into people, nearly falling and then recovering. Everywhere people around us were fleeing like a stampede of wild animals. A woman was screaming behind us and I saw Shea hesitate, looking behind him once more.

“My baby!” The woman yelled. She was standing a few feet from a house, beside herself with fear. The fire was consuming her house and her child was clearly still inside. I could see it in Shea’s face. He couldn’t just pass the woman by, but in my bitter, wicked heart I wished he would.

“Go. I’ll meet you at the lake! I promise I’ll find you!” He kissed me quickly, catching the side of my mouth as I tried to grasp onto his fingers to hold him here with me, but he was gone so quickly, and if I didn’t keep going we would be trampled. I gave Molly to Cadee and I carried Little Shea. The crowd was surging like waves and we ran until the wave finally broke, and it appeared that we were at last free of the fire. The crowd was walking slower now, more like buoys floating in the water, than the powerful waves we had known only moments before. Our family slowed to a walk, sluggish with Little Shea now walking, completely exhausted. We stopped and turned around again, to look at the fire that was engulfing our city. It was surely a site like I had never seen before. The fire was so bright, it was like Chicago was a giant beacon; but instead of attracting moths, we were all fleeing from the light, still mesmerized by it, nonetheless.

We walked with the crowd and I listened as people cried and children wailed. We didn’t talk much, and when we did it was in hushed voices, as if talking too loud would attract the attention of the fire. Our throats were sore from the smoke and our eyes were red and burning. Our lungs were still recovering from the run and from the noxious fumes. I felt as though we had barely managed to escape with our lives. What about those that could not run? What of the the lame, the elderly, and those too young to walk on their own? I thought about Shea and silently prayed he would return to us. We reached the edges of Lake Michigan and it seemed to be the place everyone had decided to stop. We finally felt as if we were far enough out of the fire’s monstrous reach.

I could feel the air around us lightening, both from the escape from the smoke and the emotional release of tension and fear. I tended to the children, wishing now that I had put shoes on Little Shea before we had left. His feet were sore and hurt from walking barefoot. I took my own shirt out of my bag and ripped it into cloths to bandage his feet. I realized that others around me needed tending as well, and so I left Cadee with the younger children and helped others in whatever way I could. I made sure to not wander too far from my family, and my eyes were constantly scanning faces, hoping to see Shea’s. Eventually, I was too drained to be of help to anyone and I found my way back to my family and held them close. Molly and Shea fell asleep and Cadee wept silently into my neck, dampening my hair. I hardly noticed as tears streamed down my own face.

At some point in the night we had all fallen asleep. We woke up still tired and hungry and unsure of what to do next. Shea was still missing and my mind kept thinking of the unthinkable while my heart scampered desperately away from it. Everyone helped each other, each of us uniting together as we grieved over what we had lost. Homes, businesses, belongings, family, friends had all gone up in smoke. The social classes dissolved and it didn’t matter if you were rich or poor. At this moment, we all understood each other on a profound level, like kin. I hugged strangers and consoled other wives and mothers. We searched together for our husbands and I promised to look out for their missing loved ones. I brought food to the frail and sickly and gave water to the weary.

Some people called the fire a “conflagration,” while religious zealots were proclaiming this fire to be an act of God. They accused the people of Chicago of being too worldly, immoral, and of relying too much on industry, and not enough on God; claiming we needed to return to living a more rustic lifestyle. I remembered my conversation with Shea, before we had fled from the fire. It seemed so long ago when I had naïvely thought God would keep the fire from us. I thought we were good people. We went to church, we served our neighbors, and surely, we lived modestly. I could not fully support the argument that God had damned us with hellfire, when I looked around and saw so many other good people hurt by the fire. Perhaps some disasters were an act of God, and others simply an act of nature.

Still, there were others that criticized the construction of the city and said Chicago needed to improve its infrastructure. Already, people were thinking about how they could move on and make Chicago better than before. I could not be so optimistic, when I didn’t know how to move on without Shea. He made life better. He had all the dreams, and I was just happy to be a part of them. Any dreams that I possibly had meant nothing without him.

            Rain finally came and smothered the rest of the fire on Tuesday, more than a day after it had started. Families were being reunited, but so many were still missing. We would later learn that while about 120 bodies had been recovered, it was suspected that 300 people had perished in the fire.

We finally headed back into the city of Chicago. Buildings had been brought to nothing but broken wood and ash. Parts of the city were dangerous with small fires still burning and falling debris. News reports and surveyors would later say that the fire had burned an area 4 miles long and 1 mile wide, destroying 17,500 buildings and 73 miles of street, moving southwest to northwest. An estimated 98,500 people were left homeless. As days moved on, people from all over the country were donating food, clothing, and money to help us recover and rebuild. My heart swelled with the generosity of this country, when it hadn’t been long ago that my mother country of Ireland had suffered from a great famine. This is what it meant to be in America. This is why we had come to this beautiful country.

I helped those that needed medical attention. I knew a little about nursing and I was eager to help those in need of convalescence. I helped gather supplies, wrapped wounds, and administered medicine. A few days after the fire, I was helping a young man with a twisted ankle.

“We’ve got another one.” The nurse next to me looked towards the flap of the tent and my eyes followed hers. A man was silhouetted in the tent opening and I shielded my eyes at the bright sunlight that spilled in. “Can I help you, Sir? Are you hurt?”

“Breena? Is that you?” The man closed the tent flap and my eyes recovered just in time to see the man rushing towards me. His hands captured my face and the familiar eyes of my husband gazed astonishingly into my own. I could not hold back the sobs as I threw my arms around Shea’s neck. He wrapped his arms tightly around me and we cried in joy and in sorrow for what seemed like eternity. I never wanted to let him go.

“I thought…I thought…” I choked out, unable to finish my thought. Shea put his finger up to my lips to silence me.

“Don’t even say it. I promised I’d find you and I never break a promise.”

I looked up at him with my tear-filled eyes and felt all my dreams return like a numb limb reawakening with restored, invigorated feeling. I had nearly given up hope. To be honest, my hope was hanging on by a thread. So many had lost their loved ones and I was no one special. Disaster and misfortune strike down the rich and the poor, the young and the old alike. It is no respecter of persons.

While I do not believe that God sent a judgment of fire to destroy our city, I do believe that God answered my prayers when he brought Shea back to me. I also believe there is always something to learn from our trials. Laws were passed that improved on the infrastructure of the city, relying on fireproof materials like bricks, stone, marble, and limestone. Shea was able to get a job working for a mason, making bricks and constructing buildings, eventually opening up his own masonry. Businesses were restored, homes were created, and with time, we all moved on, taking with us what we could from that tragic fire, whether it was loved ones, material possessions, or life lessons. With the help of the country, Chicago was not only able to rebuild, but flourish once more, rising like a phoenix out of the ashes, born again, and baptized by fire.