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‘Wonderfully overwhelming’

Meadors welcome child following house fire, thankful for community support

FAMILY IS MOST IMPORTANT – The Meador family escaped a burning house earlier this month, losing nearly everything. But Jeremy and Jessica Meador and children Jaidyn and Jaycee had each other, and three days later, they welcomed baby Jaxon to the family. After hearing about their plight, a local photographer with Makin’ Memories with Megan reached out to offer her services with this family photo. The experience has reminded them that family is more important than material possessions. Submitted photo

Jeremy and Jessica Meador and their three children will celebrate Thanksgiving with family in Wise County this week.

It won’t be a meal cooked in their kitchen, or served up at their table or even in their house.

All of that was lost 3 1/2 weeks ago in an overnight fire along with all their other possessions save the clothes on their backs.

Despite the loss, the family has plenty to be thankful for, starting with the couple’s third child, a boy, born just three days after the blaze.

The loss, it seems, has shown them what is truly important.

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UP IN FLAMES – Despite being a firefighter with 15 years of experience, Jeremy Meador could do little more than watch his home burn the morning of Nov. 3. The home was a total loss. Submitted photo

Jessica was the first to notice something was wrong.

She heard the family’s dogs barking aggressively outside around 3 a.m. It wasn’t unusual to hear the dogs fighting at their home in the country near Alvord, but she thought the dogs might be fighting another animal on their porch.

She tapped her husband on the shoulder to wake him.

“I said, ‘They’re getting something on the porch,’ and then I heard glass shatter and thought, ‘Oh gosh, it’s in the house!'” she said.

Jeremy got up and hurried toward the closed bedroom door. Spending 15 years as a firefighter taught him the importance of closing doors at night because it makes it harder for the fire to spread to your room.

But as he approached the door, he wasn’t thinking about the possibility of seeing flames on the other side but rather a wild animal in the house.

He was headed for his rifle.

“Whatever it is, we’re about to have a ‘come to Jesus’ in the living room,” he said of what was going through his mind.

Instead, when he opened the door, he quickly realized the front half of the home was on fire.

Jeremy and Jessica, who was nine months pregnant, ran to wake up their two daughters – Jaidyn, 8, and Jaycee, 5. Within a minute, the family had raced out the back door to safety.

They quickly realized they didn’t have their phones to call for help, so Jeremy said he broke the cardinal rule of house fires: never go back into a burning house.

He went back in knowing the fire would be moving quickly, so he grabbed the phones and thought about heading to the room already set up as the baby’s room to start tossing items out the window.

“I came around the bed and looked back toward the living room and the smoke had already banked down,” he said. “You could see the glow under the smoke, but you couldn’t see the fire at head high anymore. I couldn’t breathe, so I just took a deep breath and ran back outside,” he said.

Jessica called Jeremy’s parents who live a few minutes away from them.

“My mother-in-law said, ‘Did your water break?’ I said, ‘No, our house is on fire,'” Jessica said of the phone conversation.

Despite his firefighting experience, Jeremy could do little more than just stand outside and watch their home become swallowed up in flames. He said if he’d had a fire truck at the house, he might have been able to save some items from the back of the house, but the front of the house was already gone.

“It was gone in like 15 minutes,” Jessica said.

The reality of what was happening, in light of the family’s new addition scheduled to arrive any day now, began to set in.

And it was frustrating.

“I had nothing,” Jessica said. “The week before, we talked about going (to the hospital) to be induced on Wednesday and I said, ‘We’re not having this baby. He can stay in my tummy forever, cook as long as he wants because I have nothing to bring him home to. I don’t have anything – all of his coming homes outfit, all of it,'” she said.

That wouldn’t be the case for very long.

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AFTERMATH – Daylight brought the total devastation into focus. The Meadors said they were able to recover a few items from the fire but lost nearly all their material possessions, including all the baby items awaiting Jaxon’s arrival. Submitted photo

There’s an old movie people like to rewatch beginning this time of year called “It’s a Wonderful Life” about a man who seems to be down on his luck and muses about ending his own life only to be shown what his life is truly worth by a guardian angel. Spoiler alert: it ends with the entire town coming together to donate items to help save the day.

A similar scene began taking place just a few hours after the fire.

“By 8 a.m., there were already people showing up at mom and dad’s house bringing clothes, and that’s how it has been since the day of the fire,” Jeremy said. ” …The outpouring of support is nothing short of amazing.”

Just a few weeks before the fire, the Meadors had received a number of needed items at a baby shower. Now, all those gifts were gone.

Gone, but not forgotten it seems.

“Someone got on our Amazon baby register, and somebody reposted it to Facebook,” Jeremy said. “The next time we looked at it, there was like 80 out of 98 items that had been bought already.”

It turns out, most people who had purchased the original items went online and reordered the same items.

Over the next few days, dozens of boxes would arrive at Jeremy’s parent’s house where the family is staying.

“Wonderfully overwhelming” is how Jessica described it.

A couple of days after the fire, the Meadors were out buying clothes when they stopped at a restaurant for lunch. As they got ready to pay for their meal, they received an unexpected gift.

The person working the drive-through walked up and told the Meadors the customers at the window wanted to pay for their lunch. It turned out it was a man Jessica previously worked with and his wife, who Jessica had gone to nursing school with.

“That’s just divine intervention,” Jeremy said.

But it wasn’t just people that knew the couple who were reaching out to help. Jeremy said he has family members who live in Muenster, and they came down with a car load of items donated from people in that community who didn’t even know them.

It’s small town kindness at its finest, and it restored the Meadors’ faith in humanity.

“You question humanity, looking at all the social media and the news, and then something like this happens and you know there’s a lot of very good people in this world still,” Jeremy said.

With their spirits lifted, it was time to welcome the newest member of their family.

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Jessica had a few contractions that Sunday after the fire, but after a trip to the hospital, she was sent back home.

“I’m not having a baby the same day I lost my house,” Jessica said.

The couple decided to stick with the original plan of going in to have their baby Wednesday, three days after the fire. They went in early that morning and expected it might be late afternoon or evening before their son would arrive.

Instead, Jaxon arrived early afternoon, a healthy 9-pound, 2-ounce, 21 3/4 inch-long baby boy.

Within the span of just a few days, the Meadors had experienced the full range of emotions.

“The roller coaster of emotions – from the lowest of lows, losing everything you have, material items, … no longer having a house to go home to, no clothes to put on, and then to the birth of a baby…from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs,” Jeremy said.

In this season of giving thanks, the family has found it hard to put into words how much the support and compassion they’ve been shown in this trying time has meant to them.

“How do you thank that many people?” Jessica said. “There’s no way to reach out to every single person and give them the thanks they honestly deserve.”

Challenges still remain on the road ahead. Instead of building a home in 10 years like the original plan, the remnants of their burned home will be cleared to make way for their “forever home” much sooner.

It’s on land that has been in the family for 100 years.

As they gather with family Thursday, Thanksgiving will have a different meaning this year.

“It’s not about turkey or football,” Jeremy said. “It’s about the full meaning of Thanksgiving – giving thanks for what you have, who you have.”

“Not the things you have,” Jessica added.

“It brings a realization of what’s important and what you think is important,” Jeremy continued. “The only thing you need is family. That’s all you need.”

A NOTE OF THANKS

Our family would like to extend the greatest thank you to all of the churches, businesses and individuals who have donated, reached out, called, brought meals over, stopped by, messaged us and prayed over and for us the last two weeks.

On Nov. 3, when we thought we lost everything, we soon realized we had everything that was important…our family, friends, and the amazing support of our community. There are no words that we can use to thank everyone as much as they deserve. We are forever grateful and knowing what we know now, we would give as much help as we could to the next family in need.

If we have learned anything from this devastating loss it is not the things you’re going to be shopping for on Nov. 29 that are important. It’s so much bigger than that.

Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. We are forever grateful for the support and love.

The Meadors

WAYS TO HELP

A benefit account for the Meador family has been established at First State Bank in Decatur. The Meadors said they appreciate the donations they’ve been given, but what would be of most help now would be monetary donations or gift cards that would enable them to buy the items they still need.

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