The "Hottest" Mother's Day Ever

Mother's Day Weekend 1998 will definitely live forever in my memories.

I was dating a wonderful man that my kids actually liked. This hadn't happened very often through the years. We lived about 3 hours apart, and usually went out a couple of times a month.

Terry showed up at the house to take me to dinner. Of course, he came in to talk for a bit before we left. My teenage children were upstairs, but they heard his voice and came down to say hello.

We usually went to Columbus for dinner as there weren't many options in my little town. For some reason, he looked very tired and I suggested we go to the diner in town and then come home and watch a movie. I called and ordered a pizza to be delivered for the kids and Terry and I left.

As it was getting late on a Saturday, the diner was almost empty and dinner came very quickly. We were only there for about 45 minutes and decided to go for a quick drive before going back to my house.

We were about 3 miles outside of town when my pager went off. I checked the number and it was my home number followed by "9-1-1". I called the house and my daughter answered. I asked what the emergency was and she said "My bedroom's on fire."

I was so shocked I accidentally hung up on her. I dialed the phone again, trying to do a three-point turn-around on a hill, telling Terry that my house was on fire.

My daughter answered and again she said "My bedroom is on fire." I asked her if she called 9-1-1 and she said that the Sheriff's Deputy was already there. I then asked her where her brother was and at the same time I could hear the deputy yelling "Tell your brother to get out of the house!"

I told her I would be there in less than five minutes and drove like crazy. My side-street was actually a one-way alley and cars were already blocking it. I pulled into my yard and ran to my kids. After checking both of them, making sure they were all right, I heard the first sounds of glass breaking.

Trying to get the complete story was difficult. When my daughter was in her room, she had a taper candle burning. Apparently, when she came downstairs the candle fell over and landed on either a book or something else flammable. My kids never went back up to their rooms after I left.

When the pizza arrived, my son passed the stairs on his way to the kitchen and heard something. He went upstairs and saw the flames. He then ran back downstairs and grabbed the nearest container he could find to carry water in - my mother's punch bowl - filled it with water and carried it upstairs to try to put out the fire. Instead of refilling the bowl in the upstairs bathroom, he went back down to the kitchen.

Running back down the stairs probably saved my son from being burned or worse. When he got back to the top of the stairs, the smoke was so thick that he couldn't go any further. He dropped the punch bowl and made his way back downstairs.

There is nothing as frightening as watching the fire department break out the windows of your house and then seeing black smoke pouring out. I watched as books flew out the second floor window and landed on the ground - books I had since I was a little girl.

In our conversation with the fire inspector, it was confirmed that the fire was accidental and happened the way my daughter assumed. After the all clear was given, we were walked through the upstairs.

I couldn't help but keep a sense of humor. That morning, I had yelled at the kids to "clean up their sh*t!" When I saw the devastation, I couldn't help but remark "Now they don't have any sh*t to clean up."

I turned around from looking in my daughter's room and she had written in soot on the wall.

"Happy Mother's Day, Mommy"