Tyler McCain became emotional as he told CNN that he and his family are “living in limbo” after a fire reduced their home in the Texas Panhandle town of Fritch to rubble and ashes on Tuesday. But what really torments him is trying to explain his loss to his tearful 3-year-old son.
Their little boy, Addison, can be seen crying in the family car in a heartbreaking video posted to Facebook.
“Why are you crying?” McCain asks him.
“I want (the) house,” Addison says between sobs. Her father comforts her by saying, “We'll get another house, okay?”
The McCains and their three daughters (the others ages 1 and 9) were able to evacuate before flames engulfed their neighborhood, but they were unprepared for what they found when they returned home Wednesday, he said.
“I pulled into the driveway and started shaking,” he said. His wife screamed in anguish. He remembers thinking, “It's gone. My house is gone.”
Watching Addison cry about the house and asking for her belongings to be burned has broken him, McCain said.
“Everything she keeps asking for, I wonder why I didn't take it. Her favorite stuffed animal, why didn't I get it for her?” said the father.
McCain doesn't know what's coming next. He fears that whatever the family's fire insurance covers will be used to pay the mortgage. For now, they have several family members they can rely on to find a safe place to stay.
“I keep telling myself that I should feel grateful and blessed that the fire didn't spread during the night while we were sleeping,” McCain said. “A house is a house, but we are all together and that is where home is.”
