With her hands clasped on top of her head, Barbara Majczyk looks at what’s left of a house on East 4th St. where a child died in a fire Friday morning.
“I’m so heartbroken it’s not funny,” she said.
She lives in an apartment nearby. She’s in this neighborhood often.
“I go past here every day, 24/7.”
She was at home when the fire started. She found out about it when she turned on the news.
“I was numb. I started to cry.”
Seeing the burned-out house and charred debris around it was overwhelming.
“I can’t really describe it. It’s just like your body is so numb and you can’t even handle it yet.”
She doesn’t know the family that lived here. Still, this fire is personal. She has grandkids. One of them is the same age as the boy who died.
She’s worried about the family that lived here. The one that lost their own four-year-old.
“I’m going to have prayers for them. I hope they will get through this but I don’t think they’re going to get through this.”
She brought them an angel. Erie’s chief fire marshall put it in front of the house for her.
“I wanted to give them strength.”
As the investigation continues, and this neighborhood tries to deal with what happened, Majczyk said she will not forget about the people who lost everything.
“They will be in my prayers.”