A Personal Tragedy: Asking for help after my sister's house fire

This morning, I woke up to news I'm still trying to process. My sister Kylee and her family lost their home to a fire last night. The fire started in the garage, and my sister was able to dash into the house and get her baby out before it spread. Her husband also escaped uninjured, and we are all incredibly grateful they are all safe.

Kylee and me at our other sister's wedding.

The garage was gutted, and a portion of the house destroyed. What wasn't burned was melted from the heat, or severely smoke-damaged. Basically, they lost everything, or close to it. And now I'm asking for your help. If you can donate money or items, or even just spread the word, it would go a long way to helping Kylee, Joey, and baby Jakob get their feet under them.

I started a fundraising page, so if you're inclined to donate, you can do that here.

If you have items you'd be willing to donate, you can find a list of what they need and how to contact me on the same website. (Or you can just email me.)

If you can even just tweet a link to this post, or blog or Facebook about it to spread the word, that would help so much.

The fire damage

When we told my 3-year-old son that his aunt's house had burned down, he said, "I can fix her house! I'm good at fixing things!" I know the writing community is also so good at "fixing things." I hate to ask for things, but Kylee is my sister, and I love her dearly, so now I'm asking for your help. Because she desperately needs it.

Thank you so much, my friends.