Knowing the beauty of the house, I felt dismay when I learned Carolyn Sofie-Barkley’s home burned on the Fourth of July.
Five years ago, I visited the Marysville property that was meticulously landscaped for water conservation. The couple’s mantra was no rhododendrons and no grass. The idea paid off.
I’ll never forget the day the column appeared in The Herald. Sofie-Barkley took the paper and coffee in to her husband on a tray, but Robert Barkley had died in his sleep.
He never read what I wrote about their wonderful yard: “With the help of feng shui, the ancient Chinese art form, they rolled up their sleeves and started digging. Incorporating some of the rock in their design, every inch is thought out with a plant, tree, pagoda or shrub used to build a private oasis.”
The oasis held bad memories for the widow. She lived there when her father died and she facilitated her mother’s move to senior living.
She was robbed in September of her jewelry and a precious videotape inside a recorder.
Thieves even ripped through her freezer searching for valuables.
The evening of July 4, she went to bed to read. The love of her life, Bailey, a 6-year-old Shih Tzu, hunkered down trying to avoid the awful racket from fireworks. Fortunately that night, Bailey snuggled under the covers.
“I always keep a blue flashlight and my glasses next to the bed,” Sofie-Barkley said.
She dozed off, but was awakened by the smoke alarm.
She got herself ready first. Already wrapped in a bathrobe, she slid on her glasses, snapped on the flashlight, grabbed Bailey and crawled through the black, smothering smoke to the front door.
Neighbors helped her to a lawn chair where she waited for the fire department.
“It was like watching in slow motion,” she said. “We could see kids still shooting off fireworks.”
Her son was getting married the next day. After sleeping at a kindly neighbor’s home, where they gave her jammies, Sofie-Barkley, 62, bought clothes at J.C. Penney and attended the nuptials.
Sofie-Barkley was missing some essentials and her purse, but she found a lilac pantsuit.
“I had a blue silk Shantung suit, with accessories, all laid out,” she said.
Who knew that smoke from a fire would even invade the innards of a refrigerator? Sofie-Barkley said she learned much more than she ever wanted to know about the aftermath of a devastating fire.
She lost 15 pounds through the stress.
Her hairdresser, Sandy Shick, kindly arranged for her to move into a guest apartment at Cascadian Place in Everett, where she said she and Bailey were well treated. She has moved to an Everett apartment, thanks to the insurance company she praises, GMAC.
The worst thing she lost in the fire was her art studio. She teaches stamp art on cruises but has been told the odor of creosote will never leave her rubber tools. Her low-mileage 1995 Oldsmobile melted. Clyde Revord Motors in Everett, her favorite place to buy a car she said, found her a replacement.
Sofie-Barkley kept fresh batteries in her smoke alarms. Her first stop after the blaze was Staples, for a notebook, to start a to-do list.
Well before the fire, Sofie-Barkley decided to turn grief into empowerment.
“I realized I was in control of my own destiny,” she said. “I was looking to the future.”
She will rebuild the burned home, but she said she will sell the place and downsize. She’d pondered getting a smaller oasis, but not this way.
Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.
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