A Cause for Thanks

Myra Edwards understands quite well.

 

You see, back on Sunday, Sept. 24, a fire destroyed the third-floor apartment she shared with her partner William Kern in the Colonial Village Chase Gayton complex at the intersection of Gaskins Road and Quioccasin in Western Henrico County.

 

That life-altering event wasn’t a cause for thanks for Collegiate’s assistant food service director, of course, but the acts of kindness that occurred in the aftermath definitely were.

 

“William likes to make things out of wood,” explained Myra, who moved to Richmond in December and oversees the Lower School cafeteria. “He was using a miter saw on our deck. That’s what led to the fire.”

 

When William reached a stopping point that day, he and Myra headed off to Lowe’s to pick up supplies for a project he was working on, then ran an errand or two, and as they headed home along Quioccasin, they noticed a plume of smoke in the distance.

 

“That’s not good,” Myra recalls William saying.

 

“As we got closer,” she said, “we had a feeling of dread. Fire crews had already arrived. We pulled in and realized it was our apartment.”

 

Their first thought wasn’t their possessions. It wasn’t that their lives were literally changing before their eyes. It was Chester, the 10-year-old domestic shorthaired cat that Myra had rescued when she lived in Ohio and had moved with her to Wheeling, West Virginia, then to Richmond.

 

“William took off up the stairs,” Myra said. “He got to the door, but the police were pulling him back and telling him, ‘No, you can’t go in!’ We didn’t get the cat out. The fire crew did.”

 

Chester was unconscious when the first responders located him.

        

“The door opened,” Myra continued, “and a huge firefighter is carrying this cat in his arms like a baby. His eyes are glassy. He’s dripping blood from his mouth. I’m very aware that he probably won’t make it. An EMT put an oxygen mask on him. He had a heartbeat. It took several minutes for him to actually start breathing.”

 

During the blur of the afternoon, a county animal protection officer rushed Chester to an emergency vet’s office, and medics transported William to the VCU Medical Center to be treated for smoke inhalation.

 

“Everything’s gone,” Myra said. “My thought, then, is where I’m going to spend the night and what I’ll need in the first 24 hours. I couldn’t get my brain to register. It was like I was in somebody else’s body. It was like somebody hit me in the jaw.”

 

Amidst the haze, she spoke with fire investigators.

 

“The apartment was like a crime scene,” she said. “They’re taping over the door and not letting anyone in until they figure out what happened. We weren’t home. We weren’t smoking. Was it arson? They determined it was an electrical fire, it was accidental, and it started on the deck.”

 

Later that day, Myra caught a ride to VCU to be with William in the intensive care unit. That’s where she spent the night. After he was released Monday, they moved to a hotel for a week before relocating to the Stony Point Apartments in Bon Air with the few possessions they could salvage.

 

Early on, Myra notified Andy Harrison, Collegiate’s food service director, and explained her dilemma. He told her that the school stood ready to help, but with that news, Myra, a native of Scotland, found herself in uncharted territory. She’s strong, independent, and self-sufficient. Requesting assistance was far from her mind.

 

“Not a very British thing to do,” she said. “Stiff upper lip. You’re bred like that.”

 

Nevertheless, the Collegiate community responded with gift cards, cash and personal checks. Aladdin, the food service organization with which Collegiate contracts, contributed a gift card which she’ll use to purchase furniture.

 

Still …

 

“I felt like such a fraud because I’ve got a roof over my head,” she said. “People are sending me stuff, and it’s not stopping. The Red Cross offered to help. We said ‘No’ because we felt that was for people much more needy than us.”

 

In the two months since that fateful Sunday, Myra and William, a math teacher at Thomas Dale High School, have restored some sense of normalcy to their lives. Both have long since returned to work, and they’re beginning in earnest to outfit their new quarters. And Chester, miraculously, is as good as new.

 

Part of Myra’s recovery has been “paying it forward.” Several weeks ago, she prepared a home-cooked meal of chicken pot pie and cheesecake for the first responders at the six stations that answered the call that day.

 

Mainly, she’s tried to process the experience, knowing full well that the memory will never fade completely.

 

“I still feel the dirt of the fire, the blackness of it,” she said. “I’ll be OK. Definitely. But will I forget it? Never.”

 

And she counts her blessings.

 

“Aladdin has been extremely kind,” she said. “And Collegiate … Collegiate has a huge heart that beats very strong. I’m very grateful.”

    -- Weldon Bradshaw

 

(Kaitlin Clark, who also works in the Lower School cafeteria, lived with her mother Ellen in the apartment below Myra and William. They were at home when the fire broke out, quickly evacuated, and called 9-1-1. Their unit sustained water damage, but they returned later that night and remained until they relocated within the complex on Oct. 20. Colleagues also provided gift cards to assist the Clark family.)