This feels like home

PORTALES — This is a thanksgiving story.

It started with confusion. Then came surprise. And then it was horrible, before it got worse.

But a week later, Derek Quigley and Adam Peacock are focused on being thankful — for friends, family and the comfort of strangers.

"It's been absolutely overwhelming," Quigley said about Portales' response following the fire that destroyed their home on Nov. 19.

"People have given us money, they have offered to donate household items ... people have even bought me shoes.

"I can't begin to describe how the community has supported us. At Wal-Mart, people just walk up to me crying and hand me a $20 bill. I don't know how we'll be able to repay everyone for all of their kindness."

Quigley, a kindergarten teacher at Brown Early Childhood Center in Portales, was home alone about noon that Saturday.

He was working on a paper for a graduate class he's taking when he began coughing and realized he felt short of breath.

He looked out the window into the back yard and noticed a haze in the air.

Seconds later, he realized his garage was on fire.

Quigley said the events that followed are still not clear in his mind, but he remembers calling 911, thinking about trying to save the vehicles parked in the garage, calling for the dogs, Charlie and Cricket, searching for the cats, Gizmo and Journey, and then phoning his husband in tears.

The chickens in the back yard were in a panic. Some of them were on fire, "like flaming fireflies," Quigley said.

Peacock was on his way home from work when Quigley called.

He could see the smoke halfway between Clovis and Portales, but the words he heard didn't make any sense at first.

"I didn't really understand," Peacock remembered. "He said, 'The garage is on fire.' He said, 'Both vehicles are gone.' He said, 'I couldn't get the cats out. I'm so sorry.'"

Quigley said he ran in and out of the house repeatedly during the confusion, mostly trying to help the animals to safety.

Both dogs were saved.

The cats didn't make it. Gizmo died that afternoon. His brother Journey - named for Peacock's favorite band — was located under a recliner, but died Friday under the care of a veterinarian.

Quigley said investigators have told them the fire started under the hood of his car, which he'd parked in the garage about two hours earlier.

The house — just northwest of Portales' city limits — was lost, but at least the thanksgiving began before the tragedy was even over.

"People were pulling over (when they saw the flames)," Quigley said. "I passed the dogs to people I'd never met."

Peacock's aunt, who lives next door, provided them with a place to stay.

And almost immediately, friends, family and strangers began finding ways to help.

"We have received more love than I thought the human heart could hold," Quigley wrote on his Facebook page.

"People from as far away as Nevada, North Carolina and even Korea have reached out to ask what they could do."

Someone offered a couch. Gofundme pages, started by friends, have raised more than $3,000. The shoes — pink high tops — came from one of Quigley's former kindergarten students.

And when the ashes cooled, they were able to salvage several things that mattered — photos, a cross worn by Quigley's mother, "even the Apple Watch that Adam worked so hard to save up for to get me for my birthday," Quigley said.

The plan now is to rebuild on site. They bought the place 4 1/2 years ago, Peacock said, and "it feels like home."

Even more, now.

"The community has kind of embraced us," Quigley said.

David Stevens is editor for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]