It’s been 6 years since my dad took his last breaths here on earth. Those breaths were filled with hot carbon monoxide in the smoke that filled his lungs.

I often try to imagine his last moments. How I wish it would have been different…not in the fact that it was a house fire…but the source of the house fire.

If only the fire investigators would have found that it had been faulty wires, or a candle that fell, or a stove that was left forgotten. Something…just anything that would just be a terrible accident.

But when we found out about the fire, we all knew ..the source was my dad!

Although that might seem sickening, why would somebody light their own house on fire! The answer is substance abuse and revenge.

So 2013, My dad has been a recovering drug addict, and clean for 3 years. Troubles and stress came and my dad made the poor decision to relapse in may of 2013. He didnt start right from drugs, but first alcohol…that quickly relapsed on everything he had been doing before.

He kept telling us he would beat this, but he seemed to get worse and worse. He would also keep trying to quit, but after 6 days his withdrawls were to hard to handle and he would fall again.

Lomg story short, he was reminded of a charge he got from early 2000’s and after that reminder when he wouldnt be sober he would get angry at my mom for calling the cops on him that night.

Now fast forward to new years day 2014 my dad got high and decided my mom doesnt deserve another year to live. He locks her in the garage and tells her he will kill her. A miracle happened and somebody rang the doorbell and my mom got away when he went to check. This led to her escape, but that was the last time she saw my dad alive again.

After that happened, everything else was very critical in leading to upcoming events. My dad quit drugs on jan 2nd and was asking the church to pray for him to overcome this battle. On jan 3rd he called my mom to come back. Ofcoarse we didnt let her (my husband and I were visiting out of state and couldn’t be there to protect her. He always stayed decent when we were around to help)

We told him after we are all together then we can go back to normal. But with his childhood trauma of always being neglected and physically abused, he couldn’t understand my mom leaving him even after he quit drugs.

He relapsed again on the night of the 3rd and decided to arrange a move to Alaska. He knew this would result in him leaving behind the house he built himself. (He always said if a divorse were to happen he will get the house or he will burn it)

Well that’s exactly what he decided to do. Early morning hours at 9:30am a 911 call came in. My dad set a fire in the garage, then the living room then the master bedroom. When the firefighters came in they found his lifeless body in the masterbedroom by the window.

They pulled him out and tried to bring life back into him. But it was to late.

We lived in a small town so this all was new. They ruled it suicide because they knew he set it and they didnt see evidence of him trying to escape. Also they saw melted plastic on him, so they thought he was playing in plastic to die faster.

Later a professional out of state fire investigator later came and did calculations he said by the time he did the fire in the master bedroom the living room fire would have blocked the hallways to get out. This would force him to go back into the master bedroom to the window. He died at the window, his handprints visible as he tried to open it.

He also said the melted plastic on my dad was the same as the curtains that were dripping on him. So he wasnt trying to die like they originally thought…but he was trying to live!

The police never found the handprints untill we saw them the next day. So it was ruled a suicide…and they never changed it to accidental death, because they thought it was ment to be a suicide in which he wanted to abort.

That took a long time for me to try to understand their stubbornness…even after what the fire investigator found. He said it was 100% accidental death and no evidence of suicide. But that’s fine, we all know my dad was absolutely afraid to die.

The month my dad died is the month I became pregnant with the twins. They were God sent, I knew Gods hand was in control of everything. It took me a long time, and a great fight in my spiritual life to get to where I am now. But now I can confidently say…I am ok with where my life is and how it went down. And if I can use my dads story to help others, I will. To many controversial deaths happen and everybody is just ashamed and depressed I’m silence.