July 3rd will be 6 months since our house burned down. Six months since we lost everything. How long does it take to stop grieving the loss? I still feel homeless. I still feel like none of this stuff is mine. Just yesterday I was thinking of how much I wanted to nap under the quilt my Granny Tucker made me. It was white with squares lined in baby blue and pink. Inside each square was a butterfly and tulip, made from pieces of different cloth. I slept under that quilt every night from age 7 to 18. Mom gave it to me when I moved away from home. That quilt is gone now. So is my wedding dress. It was a steal on Amazon. I think I paid $15. It was white lace and tea length. I felt so pretty and Phillip says I looked so pretty too. Gone too is the first wedding ring set he bought for me. It had a heart-shaped center stone and the band had blue sapphires. The wedding band his grandfather willed to him is gone, too. I lost the boys’ baby books with their photos and ultrasound pictures. The oval stained glass window Mom made for me is gone. We have no books. We lost our Bibles. We lost my toy box that Grandaddy Hayes made me and the hutch he made is gone, too. These are just “things”, but they are really more than that. They represent my life, our life. Maybe I should be over this by now. Maybe it’s stupidly sentimental to cry. Maybe I’m just having a bad day. After all, we all did make it out alive, which is a blessing. But the hurt is still real and the tears still flow.