“If that was the only thing I got back, I would’ve been happy,” Dixon, 57, said Monday, his blue eyes shining with pride. His uncle, who battled alcoholism, gave him the coin about 10 years ago on his deathbed, and Dixon, who faced similar struggles with alcohol, took the responsibility of it seriously — he’s been sober ever since.
More than three weeks after a devastating fire that killed 10 residents of the assisted living facility, the 59 surviving residents, who are scattered in 11 locations that provide care or housing for seniors, are slowly having their belongings returned, a process that for many brings an aching mix of joy and grief.
They are grateful to be reunited with their treasured family memorabilia and jewelry. Yet the possessions also offer a painful reminder of that terrible night and the realization that their old lives, and friends, are gone.
Each survivor is at a different stage of starting over. Some have received most of their belongings that survived the fire and are in a permanent assisted living facility. Others are still in temporary facilities, waiting for their belongings and a new start. They have all faced a transition marked by uncertainty at every step.
Dixon, who has multiple sclerosis, is staying at Fall River HealthCare while he waits to move into another assisted living facility. In his room is a small dresser covered with family photos, still layered in soot. With a faraway look, he stared at the images of his mother, sister, and brother, who have all passed away.
“I just hate all the displacement,” he said of his situation since the fire. “You don’t know if you’re coming or going.”
In interviews on Monday, residents said they continue to work through their grief, and guilt, from that Sunday night in July.
Ernest Coupe, 70, turned away in his room at Fall River HealthCare as he remembered the fire, trying to stop his tears. When he saw the smoke, Coupe ran into two of his neighbors’ rooms on the second floor and guided them out, into the waiting arms of firefighters. One was lying in a pool of water from a sprinkler above her head, he said.
His daughter had worked double shifts to buy him new furniture for his room, but he was told the pieces were contaminated in the fire. But that “doesn’t mean nothing” in the big picture, he said.
“What means everything is I lost the people,” he said. “The people that ended up leaving this world in fear.”
He still hopes to retrieve a photo of his grandmother from his old room. But he is more occupied with feelings of guilt from the night of the fire, when he ran past the room of a woman who died.
“I was wrong,” Coupe said, choking up. “I should’ve went in that room.”
Down the hall, Neal Beck, 78, admired a photo of his late brother, Scott, on his dresser. Beck said his brother, who had a head full of curly red hair, is now watching over him, giving him strength.
Beck is partially blind and has struggled to find his way around the facility and make sense of his swirling emotions since the fire. On Monday, Beck remembered how his brother came to him in a dream the night of the fire, urging him to wake up.
“I have to deal with” the survivor’s guilt, Beck said. “It doesn’t make sense to me, but my brother saved me. So I have to appreciate that.”
While some residents continue to relive the night of the fire in painful detail, Debbie Bigelow, 68, who lost her boyfriend, Rui Albernaz, to the fire, decided it’s time to give back.
In the past week, she has gotten her necklaces, bracelets, and wallets from her room at Gabriel House.
She looked fondly upon a white beaded necklace her mother gave her and a cultured pearl necklace from her grandmother. While she will keep the most sentimental pieces, Bigelow said she has decided to sell most of her jewelry and give the money to charity.
“The fire inspired me,” she said. Bigelow said she must have survived for a reason, and she believes it’s to help others.
“I pray that’s the reason,” she said.
Bobby LePage, 65, who was placed permanently in River Falls Senior Living facility after the fire, said he has found solace in the belongings that a Gabriel House worker brought to him on Friday — his GED, his Bristol Community College diploma, and his guitar.
“Everything that identified Bobby as being Bobby,” LePage said. “I’m proud of myself for that stuff.”
Still, many residents are struggling to move forward amid grief and uncertainty about their future living situation.
Michael Pimentel, a double amputee, held his head in his hands outside of Fall River HealthCare. He still doesn’t know where he’s going next.
Smoking a cigarette, Pimentel said he has gotten his motorized wheelchair and upper dentures back. But he’s missing photographs of his family that mean “the world” to him.
“One step forward, 20 steps back,” Pimentel said of the process.
Pimentel believes the home could have done more to protect residents, citing the lack of fire drills and upkeep of the building during the eight years he lived there, along with general poor conditions in Gabriel House, with mice and cockroaches infesting the rooms.
A spokesperson for Dennis Etzkorn said in a recent statement that Gabriel House “has been inspected by local and state authorities, as well as the sprinkler system vendor, and found to be consistently in compliance with regulations, with rare exceptions that were promptly addressed.”
He said the home “has been allowed to operate continuously throughout that time frame, and in the rare instances where violations were reported, they were answered with a corrective plan that was approved by regulators and put into place by our staff.”
