To The Burned Children Recovery Foundation,

I really don’t know where to start. We sent you the newspaper article about how our house caught on fire when our daughters were in their bedroom with candles, and how the curtain caught fire and then it moved to the bed, and how they feared letting us know that their room was on fire until it was to late to do anything about it.

We lost one of our daughters in the fire, and the other one we could only hope that she could make it. She was burned, yet not extremely bad. She is able to cover her burns with long pants, yet she forever carries the guilt of losing her sister in the fire.

Her words still haunt her father and I. As the ambulance people were taking her away for care, she kept saying Daddy please don’t be mad at me. It was the worst accident our family has ever endured. We were lucky enough to have at least one child make it out. We can never replace her sister, nor could we have ever replaced her.

Nancy lives with that pain each day, yet with the help of your foundation she has been able to come to terms with that terrible night. She has been able to talk about it with the help of the campfire and hearing other children’s stories. She is now able to talk about how she feels about how it has affected her, both by being burned and by surviving the fire.

As her parents, it was very tough not knowing how to deal not only with our pain of losing a child, and still having another one who did make it, and helping her to get through the grief also was very difficult. The booklets that you provided for us were a great resource for us to start to heal ourselves, and how to help our remaining precious daughter through both her grief and her recovery process.

Girls can be very vain, and when your child is burned there is no going back. You can’t take that back, so we had to with the help and tools that we were given to us we did begin to heal, and we were able to help our daughter. We can’t thank you enough for all the help you have given to us.

Sincerely,

Nancy & Don Boatman