“I feel lost,” Taya Fielding said as she looked up at the blown-out windows of her apartment.
Fielding has been staying in motels and hotels since fire forced her and her 10-year-old son from their High Street apartment May 15.
“I wake up in the morning and it’s like I don’t know where I am,” said Fielding, 30. “I’ve lived on my own since I was 14. I’m used to hard times, but my heart is so heavy.”
On May 15, Fielding got off work at about 3 p.m. She went home and was outside with her boyfriend, who had recently moved in with her, before she was to pick her son up from daycare at 4. Her boyfriend went inside to get his keys.
“He yelled out the window, ‘The house is on fire!’” Fielding recalled.
Fielding entered the building at 520 High St. and fought through the smoke-filled apartment to retrieve her dog.
“The TV was somehow on the bed, and the bed was on fire,” she said. “Thank God we weren’t sleeping because, in 20 minutes, the windows blew out.”
She knew the damage was severe, but she still wasn’t ready for the call from ServiceMaster.
“There’s nothing that’s salvageable,” Fielding was told.
“There really isn’t a way to prepare for that,” she told OrilliaMatters Friday afternoon.
She lost all of her clothes, electronics and jewelry, including a necklace that belonged to her late father.
Firefighters did manage to find a locket that contains some of her grandfather’s ashes, though it is damaged.
Almost all of her son’s belongings were lost, too.
No one was injured in the fire, and Fielding is thankful for that. Her two-year-old dog was traumatized by the incident, and Fielding had to feed him from her hand and force him to drink for a while. The dog is staying with Fielding’s sister in Belleville until she can find a place to live. She won’t be returning to the High Street four-plex, as she has been told it would be at least six months before she could get back in.
“I can’t be homeless that long,” she said.
Friends and co-workers have rallied around Fielding since the tragedy. A friend surprised her Friday with a new cellphone. Her colleagues at Leadbetter Foods have started a collection, as has Lions Oval Public School, where her son, Preston, attends.
“I’m thankful for a lot of people right now,” Fielding said.
That includes Red Cross, firefighters and North Simcoe Victim Services.
“Everyone’s been very supportive and helpful.”
But the struggle, both financially and emotionally, is far from over.
“When I picked Preston up from school today, he was in tears,” Fielding said.
It will be a while before life gets back to normal for her and Preston, but a GoFundMe page has been set up to help them on that journey. It can be found here.
Officials believe it was an electrical fire that led to the damage at the four-plex. Ten tenants were displaced, but the residents of two of those units have since been allowed back in.
