The bill came to nothing.
Tim ran some other errands, picked up Christy, and they stopped at Muralt's Travel Plaza to eat before heading home to Plains.
Since their home was destroyed by fire a week before Thanksgiving, the Andersons have been amazed at the strangers, businesses and groups who have stepped forward to help them during difficult economic times, and in the middle of the Christmas season.
“I mean, the waitress at Muralt's didn't know who we were,” says Christy, who also had the Anderson's 2-year-old son, Coby, by her side in the café. “She came up to the table to take our
order and said to Coby, ‘Oh, is Santa going to come visit your house
soon?' ”
Coby got this funny look on his face, unsure how to answer, his mom says.
Christy explained to the waitress.
“Technically,” she said, “we don't have a home.”
Now it was the waitress' turn to look puzzled.
“We were the people in the Missoulian?” Christy offered. “Our house burned down?”
“Oh, you're the one whose husband is being shipped out to Iraq!” the waitress responded.
Yep, in less than two weeks, Spc. Tim Anderson of the Montana National Guard - who spent 2004 in Iraq shortly after he and Christy were married - leaves for another deployment to the country.
He's been scrambling to clear the rubble from the fire and get an old mobile home set up for his wife and their four kids - including 9-month-old twins Steve and Sarah - before he ships out on Jan. 3.
“Not another word was said” about the fire or Tim's looming departure that evening at Muralt's, according to Christy. But when the Andersons went to pay their bill, the waitress refused their money.
“That's on us,” she told them.
“It's all been a godsend,” says Tim, whose family lost virtually everything in the fire. “We're going to be able to give our kids a Christmas. That so many people have actually been willing to sacrifice and help us out makes me feel pretty good.”
Christy's 12-year-old, Tierra Person, plus Coby, Steve and Sarah, will each get four gifts on Christmas.
“Four gifts apiece is more than enough,” Christy says. “We can't give too much because we don't have the space.”
The 14-by-70, 25-year-old single-wide trailer will be bigger than the 1950s-era one that burned on
Nov. 20, but will still be cramped quarters.
Because it's longer, too, and sitting on a slope, one end will be 7 feet off the ground.
“Eyeing it, it didn't look like it would be that high,” Tim says, “but when my dad put his 6-foot level up and measured it, we went, ‘Holy cow.' ”
Fortunately, in addition to the $1,000 account Tim's civilian employer, Montana Rail Link, established for the family at Brinson's Building Supply in Plains, it also donated 100 railroad ties.
Tim is using them for a foundation for the trailer, and will wall off the front end that's 7 feet high and insulate it to serve as a root cellar/pantry area where the Andersons can put their freezer as well.
Friends are going to help him start to level and skirt the trailer the day after Christmas. Anderson must still fix a floor in the back bedroom that suffered water damage when a pipe burst on the previous owner, repipe it, put down the donated carpet, put in a new meter box and hook the trailer up to the septic system.
“That should be fun with the frozen ground,” he says.
Once it's ready - Tim expects to be working on it even on Christmas Day - he hopes to have the family in by Dec. 29 or 30. They've been living with Tim's parents since the fire.
He leaves for Libby on Jan. 2, on a journey that will take him to Helena, Fort Lewis, Wash., and then Iraq.
If all goes well, before that they'll move in blankets, clothes, food, furniture, toys for the kids and countless other items donated by strangers in the wake of the fire. The gifts will keep coming during Tim's deployment; a veterans group donated 12 months worth of gift certificates, worth $100 a month, at a local grocery store.
Many more people donated money to an account set up for the family at the Rocky Mountain Bank in Plains.
“Everything we got was awesome,” Christy says. “We needed all of it, yet it seems like so much, you know?”
The Andersons have kept all the envelopes from people who wrote and sent money or items. They intend to write thank-you cards to all who included return addresses, and want those who didn't give their name to know how much their gifts were appreciated too.
“Now all we need is a home,” Christy says. “Time's running short.”
The kindness of strangers, fortunately, has not.
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)
Maurica wrote on Dec 28, 2008 2:13 PM: