A Home to Lay Our Heads

My name is Jackie Robertson this is my story that has changed my life forever.

My husband and I lost our home in a fire on Mother's Day weekend while we were visiting my mother. The fire started in the back bedroom due to bad wiring in the wall. We were very lucky that we were not at home.

By the time the firemen had the fire extinguished, all that was left was a partial bedroom and bathroom. We lost all of our furnishings, clothes, and most of our keepsakes. The only things to survive the fire and water damage was some family photo albums.

We arrived before the fire was gone and it felt like the worst thing that could happen. I had lived in this home since I was eight years old. Standing there, knowing that there was literally nothing I could do but watch 30 years of my life be destroyed. It hadn't even occurred to me that our lives would never be the same.

We had paid the last mortgage payment just three months earlier and were waiting for my mother to put the house in our name. My mother was on the verge of foreclosure ten years earlier so my husband and I took over the payments for the home and insurance with the agreement that once paid off, the title would be transferred to us. So the insurance was also in her name. When the insurance claim closed and the check received, my mother refused to use it to replace our home and belongings. We were now homeless and our only income was my husband's disability check. We recently lost our vehicle and I'm terrified of being homeless again because we won't have a vehicle to stay in.

My husband has mental and physical disabilities that prevent him from working anymore. He has several fractured vertebrae and some bulging disks. He also suffers from bipolar disorder, manic depression and PTSD that causes him to lose time so he cannot be alone. I had to quit my job to become his sole caretaker. Due to insurance premiums, his disability check showed $400 less but I am hoping to get the premiums reduced which will increase his pay again.

Being in this situation and not working is very frustrating for us. We always thought that if we worked hard, raised our children as well-mannered,independent, and kind, it would all turn out great and we would be able to spend our kids free years doing everything that we had chosen to put aside for our kids. We'll we all know that life doesn’t usually turn out the way you plan. This was a lesson we both learned at very early ages.

We have been a couple since August 1989 and we got married in August 1996. We became parents when I was just 13 and he was 16, two years later we had our second and last child. So we did what good parents do, we actually raised our children from day one. He tried to continue with school and work, but in the end, he left high school to work full-time for our family, he went back to school when he was 28 yrs old. I wasn't old enough to work yet, but having lost my biological father to cancer when I was 8, I received a monthly check. When I turned 16 yrs old, I started working full-time while still going to high school (I was able to graduate). We always lived our lives around our children and made sure they came first. Now they are grown with families and unable to help us.

I please ask for any donation that you can comfortably afford. All donations pay for renting new home, buy furniture for the home, and set up the utilities. The moving isn't much as we only need to rent a truck because all of our belongings are in 4 totes and 3 suitcases. Once we get back on our feet, we will again be able to “pay it forward” as much as we once did. We hope to help other families that are victims of not only fires but any other tragedy, especially families that do not have insurance to cover the devastation. Knowing the pain that we have gone through with not having a warm place to sleep in the winter or wondering when we will be able to eat again, we don't want anyone else to feel like that.

Thank you in advance for your kindness in our time of need. May God continually bless you and your family!