"Sometimes the most unexplainable things happen, things that make us question everything… that make us want to run away and stop trusting what was once everything we believed in… but we can’t and shouldn’t… we should cling to what ever we have left…. because in the end, the things we see as unexplainable or devastating happen for a reason.. the best we can do is go with it… ride it out… because usually once the haze surrounding the catastrophic messes in which we find ourselves, starts to clear… the light is waiting… ready to show us the way home"

———

As the house before her went up in flames, Shane stood in the middle of the street still in her pajamas, holding a crying boy in her arms.. she watched as the flames got higher and more intense by the second… her thoughts drifted back almost a month… to the last conversation she had with her family before leaving… to Carmen and how much she missed and needed her… then came to a screeching halt at Carla… and her few words of wisdom, that until now Shane couldn’t understand…

The tears slowly began flowing down her angular face as the harsh reality of their situation, sunk in…. that she would never again see Carla’s smiling face or hear her motherly laugh… because now their mother was gone… yes ‘her mother’… maybe not in blood, but in the love she gave so openly to Shane in spit of her father… she became her mother…

While Shane cradled her crying brother in her arms, soothing and comforting him… she finally understood the reason for all her misfortune… and she welcomed their new beginning… and it was theirs because now it wasn’t just Shane… it was Shane and shay .. she was the only one he had left…

"where do we go now" Shay asked sniffling, his voice only a sleepy whisper, his eyes were full of pain and lose… yet filled with unconditional love as he looked up at Shane… the one women he could trust to protect him and call his sister..

"home…" Shane told him, a faint smile appearing through her tears…"..its time to go home" she said gently, as the smoke surrounding them cleared… she knew he didn’t fully understand what had happened to Carla.. but she knew all to well, that understanding what happened and feeling that connection to someone break are two completely different things..