won't back down

"When all is lost, all is left to gain."

She awoke suddenly, and just for a second thought it all was a dream. For the smallest, simplest, and happiest of moments. Then the reality came rushing back to Cassandra with such a vengeance she felt it would knock her over. And maybe it already had. The fire. The house was gone. That house that she had grown up in, that she had set up her business in, that she wanted to raise her kids in. Her daughter...

She looked over at her child, lying unconscious in her hospital bed. That fire was threatening to take the most precious thing from her life, and she didn't know how to fight it. Cassandra had been in the hospital for hours trying to figure out what she could do. How she could remedy this situation. But there was nothing. She wasn't particularly good at waiting, but that was her only option.

Cassandra would have to wait and see how badly the smoke had damaged her three-year old daughter's lungs. Cassandra would have to wait for the insurance company to fill out paperwork and submit reports before receiving compensation. And she would have to wait for an offer of employment.

She was imagining her whole life fall apart when her daughter woke up. She coughed and called out for Cassandra. Cassandra wrapped her tiny hand in hers and pushed the pager for the nurse. It took that gracious miracle for Cassandra to realize that the house and the job were important but not everything. Everything she needed to restart her life was in this room.