The O’Kelley Story
Addison, Amanda, Adam, and Aidan
We’re Adam, Amanda, Aidan and Addison O’Kelley
…or simply the AOK Family.
This is our story of tragedy, faith and perseverance.
A devastating fire destroys the O’Kelly home on August 19, 2022
This story begins on March 6, 2020. It was on that day that we bought our home on Laxey Glen drive during the height of the COVID pandemic. Aidan was 8, and Addison was 5 and they both had learned to swim. It had been our dream to buy a home with a pool or with enough room to build our own in order to create lasting memories as our children grew up.
The house on Laxey Glen did not have a pool, but the yard was a blank canvas and perfect for building our own. In October of 2020, we signed a contract to build a pool and patio addition and expected to be completed over the winter and ready for the swimming season in 2021.
During the build, on December 18, 2020, Adam was diagnosed with Leukemia for the second time in his life. This was his second bout with this horrible disease, as we had battled this as a young married couple already in 2009, in the early part of our marriage. After 11 years of remission, and with 2 kids in the picture this time, this diagnosis was devastating. Adam was forced to undergo inpatient chemotherapy treatments during Covid, so he had to endure these alone and with no visitors. Also, since this was his second diagnosis of Leukemia, his Dr recommended that we pursue a bone marrow transplant, which is a treatment option that can cure Leukemia, but comes with its own significant risks.
We decided to pursue this option to give Adam the best chance for a normal life and in March of 2021 he was admitted to the hospital for one month to undergo the treatment. The transplant was extremely arduous and the recovery was almost a year, but we made it through as a family and Adam’s health has continued to improve.
2022 was shaping up to be our first normal year in a while.
Adam was healthy and living a normal life, the kids were back in school full time from COVID and we were enjoying our new home and backyard pool addition that we completed while Adam was undergoing his bone marrow transplant.
Then, on August 19, 2022, our lives were forever changed.
A fire started in our garage and spread throughout the home. We were able to evacuate safely, but the resulting fire, smoke and water damage has let us to the painful decision that we will have to demolish our home and rebuild it. To complicate things, our home insurance company was deemed insolvent almost simultaneously to our home burning down, so we were unable to get new coverage in time and are currently only receiving about 25% of what we are owed from our insurance company. This very unfortunate circumstance has put us in a very difficult financial position, but after months of looking at options, we have decided that our path forward is to rebuild. It will be very tough, and it will take a very long time to recover from the financial hit, but this is our home and where we are supposed to be.
We are a family of faith, we trust that God has us right where He wants us to be to continue to do His work. We are very thankful to everyone who has given so generously of their time and/ or resources to help us on this journey. Every little bit matters, and we’ve learned that help often comes in very small ways from a lot of different people. If you are reading this, you may be in a position to give a small amount of help, and we would just say that we really appreciate anything that you would consider. Thank you for being a part of this journey with us and becoming a part of the AOK story.