Losing My Hobbit Hole

Early in the process of the water coming down and the before ceiling began to cave in. 

Twenty minutes later this entire couch was filled with water. 

I stopped taking pictures once the ceiling began falling in in bigger chunks, and I was soaked from head to toe.

I had just come back home from Atlanta, Georgia on Monday Nov. 28. I worked all day Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday night while watching the Dolly Parton movie on NBC, I received two boxes of pictures I ordered to be printed and began to organize them to put into photo albums (I'm probably the only person in the world who still prints pictures). I was even taking pictures of the pictures and sending them to people, all excited for my photo project Mega Omega I embarked myself on! I just printed pictures and put them in these new picture frames too and replaced them all on my walls. So I decided the next day, Thursday I would sleep in a little and work on my picture project.

Thursday December 1 as I'm working on the pictures, I hear this rapid "TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP", and I wonder "What the hell is that?" I get up from my couch and walk over to the opposite side wall where I have my shelves and Christmas tree. I see water running down the walls and dropping on my pictures! I pimmediately begin to take the pictures off the shelf, then I see there is water in the middle of the ceiling coming through straight down on the Chritsmas tree! THEN two seconds later one of the ceiling tiles falls in with a loud SPLASH of water!

I run upstairs to find my landlady yelling in Italian with her aide and there is an inch of water in her entire kitchen! I yelled in Italian "What happened!?" She couldn't remember how to turn the water off and no one called anyone! I immediately called her son and daughter in law and his place of business to send someone over! In seven minutes a man came and it took him 8 more minutes to find the main water brake. During that time I was a shrill version of the Rain Man going "Okay! Alright! Oh NO! Okay! As I kept moving objects into the dining room or to other sides of the room, then RE-moving them because water was spreading that way. I was drenched in water, which smelled horribly, and ceiling was caving in on all different spots.

I stopped taking pictures once larger pieces were falling. It was sporadic too. 

The lights filled up with water which had me worried about fires starting too. 

It was only my main living room floor at first but then it expanded into the bedroom and closets. Both my couches now drenched. 

I didn't know what to do! I messaged Master Kathy to which I received a phone call immediately. I knew she dealt with water before when she lost her house in 2010. Immediately she gave me direction, as I had none. I didn't know what to do, I was a bit stunned, and just getting more upset and I watched the water come down even more! It started off as just drops from all over, then fast dripping, then at one point it looked like it was actually raining inside the apartment.

I sent a mass text to people who may have been around. One of my students came to help. We saved the books, the electronics, a few DVDs and I put a bunch of clothes I saw and grabbed in a backpack. By then both couches, my clothes, pictures including all the new ones that were organized on the floor (easily replaceable), my bed, my cabinets, were all water and destroyed. It was almost and hour and a half when the water finally stopped coming in and by this time, 3/4 of the ceiling caved in, adding a lot of dirt on top of the wet. 

We took out the two couches, taking the doors off the hinges and leading them up the stairs. One opened into a bed for guests, and one had a full mattress in it for guests as well. We bagged a lot of garbage, tried to clean clothes across the street which some were salvageable, most not. We also saved as many of my Christmas ornaments that we could, some ruined, some fell and broke, but the tree itself that I keep up all year round had to go as it was a pre lit tree. 

By this time you can see the fast dribbles before it turned into what reminded me of a fire sprinkler. 

All I kept thinking was "My home..."

My pre-lit Christmas tree I would keep up all year long, gone. 

My two couches and the rug ripped up. 

I was so lost. I started one thing and would walk over and do something else then bounce to another part of the apartment. All I kept thinking in my head was "My home..." When I noticed the tears in my eyes I shook my head and told myself to snap out of it, and then attempted to shift my focus into the "It could be worse" mindset, see if I can see some silver lining. Well, I DID want to downsize and purge a bit, but this is ridiculous! I tried to make little jokes with my students there and with the landlord's workers.

We ripped up all the rugs and rolled them up, exposing this VERY old and retro looking floor. The workers had taken down the rest of the 1/3 ceiling that didn't collapse. I was just dumbfounded. Of course immediately people were offering me a place to stay and I always have my parents and Aunt Karen in Saddle Brook, my grandparents back in Saddle Brook now too, and Jessie, and Charlene, and Ara and Juneta across the street, and I thank them all who've been helping.

It's over a week now and I do miss my own bed. I've had stressful days of being on the phone all day with insurance companies, making lists, looking for things, continuously finding things that have been ruined, clothes we didn't catch still soaked, papers and documents gone. And of course the looking at options and credit checks and on and on and on. Did I mention it's the holidays?

Rugs ripped up and taken out.

Most of the ceiling caved in and was wet and old. 

How in the world my Hogwarts tapestry on the wall survived I'll never know!

First batch of trash.

So I went through the grieving stages quick. That Thursday I was so focused on what I had to do. Friday after I was shell shocked. Then Saturday I just sat in my parents living room all day after teaching and was just so incredibly sad. By Sunday I was with Aunt Karen and already accepted that it happened and move on! This past week of stress has had me emotionally eating everything in sight, not sleeping well, I even had a few dreams of water going down the walls, I see it in the corner of my eyes sometimes, and I have a twitch under my left eye LOL. 

But one of the things that this did do for me was not to realize I lost just about everything, but to realize I have EVERYTHING. Everything that really counts. What makes life is not our things, but the life we live and the people we get to share it with. I have been counting my blessings but even more than that to see how incredibly blessed I am. I have had such tremendous good wishes and calls and support from my family here in New Jersey, as well as my martial arts family now only here at home but all across the country. My fitness ladies at the gym have brought great support to me as well, and a blessed person bought me brand new clothes last Tuesday. 

The night of the apartment flooding out, I went to dinner when all was said and done across the street, where I showered and cleaned up the debris all over me, and then my student Robert and his girlfriend came by and asked me to go across the street. I told them there's nothing to see but they persisted so I went over where they met me in front of the house. I walked them to my entrance and I'm talking and then I stop dead and gasped. They had a three foot Christmas tree set up and decorated in front of my door to the apartment. I couldn't contain myself, my heart turned to mush. 

 I later saw that his girlfriend Amanda started this online GoFundMe account, someone showed me the link. When someone gave me the link to see this, this is where I finally caved in. I cried like a little baby. I couldn't believe so many people came together to do something like this for me. She even called it Trento's Hobbit Hole Help (everyone knows I call my apartment the Hobbit Hole). People from my family, students and families from my school, friends of mine from town and grade school, extended family from Georgia, Tennessee, Nevada, Maryland, I think even Misouri! I was and am so deeply touched and in awe. It would be impossible to thank all these people one by one so here I am to say to all those people: THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart.

Even though I am still incredibly sad, I am incredibly aware that I am incredibly blessed to have so many people who care about me in this way. Jimmy Stewart said in the movie It's a Wonderful Life, "No man is a failure who has friends." And I have always said, I am doubly-blessed to call them all my family! (BOWS)

Yours in service,
MASTER A TRENTO