PAULDING COUNTY, Ga. — When Kati Wall called 911 on Sept. 23, she was terrified but hopeful.
“My kids are there and they haven’t answered their cell phones,” she told the dispatcher. “I just need to know if they’re OK.”
She was rushing to her home on Baskin Road in Paulding County. Neighbors had called her telling her the house was on fire.
“Is it bad?” she asks the dispatcher on the other line.
“I’m gonna be real honest with you, I don’t know,” the dispatcher responds.
It was bad. Worse than Wall could imagine.
“I can see smoke. Oh my God,” Wall cries out on the call.
She was home within 15 minutes, but it was too late.
“They didn’t make it out,” she said.
More than a month later, Wall is able to reflect on that day.
Her boys, Robert and Caleb Deaton, died that day in the fire. They were found upstairs, Robert in the main bedroom and Caleb in the bathtub. Wall believes Robert’s last act in life, was putting his younger brother in that tub to try and save him before passing out from the smoke.
“They said one or two breaths of that smoke was enough to render someone unconscious,” Wall said.
Seventeen-year-old Robert, who Wall described as loyal, protective and kind, was pronounced dead at the scene. Caleb, Wall’s sensitive, outspoken firecracker, was holding on but was pronounced dead at the hospital. He was 13.
“It was awful, he didn’t even really look like my son. And I just started screaming and ran out,” Wall said.
The tragedy was incomprehensible for Jason Wall, the boys’ former stepfather who also lived in the home.
“I remember screaming and crying and then having to pull myself together to get to the hospital,” he said.
Katie Wall’s husband, John Lawrence, said the loss has been unbearable for the family.
“It was gut-wrenching to know this is where my boys passed -- and it hurt. It still hurts,” he said.
The boys' mother was also hurting in an unimaginable way.
“That first couple of days, I didn’t see a point in still being here and living. What is the point?” Wall questioned.
Her feelings were exacerbated by the fact that she had already lived through more loss and trauma than any person ever should.
“On November 5, 2017, my parents went to church at their normal Sutherland Springs Baptist Church and they never came home,” she said.
Twenty-six people died that day outside San Antonio. Wall’s parents were among them. At the time it was the most profound grief she’d ever felt. Now, she’s feeling it again. But in a way, the death of her parents taught her to cope.
“I am gonna miss my children for the rest of my life. I am going to be hurt by this for the rest of my life,” she said. “I can’t shut down like I did with my parents because I’ve got things to do.”
Big things.
Wall’s temporary home with her in-laws has a room set up specifically for reptiles.
“This is Tater, Caleb named him,” she said as she pulled out a large lizard. “My kids loved reptiles, I love reptiles so the vision that we had in our head is we’re gonna buy a farm."
She plans to start “Little Rose Farm.” She already has plenty of rescues, now she needs funding.
Wall estimates she will need millions of dollars to create and maintain the facility. A lofty goal that to her isn’t a question of how she’ll earn it, but when.
“I have faith that if I am doing what my purpose is and what my kids wanted me to do that it’ll all come together,” she said.
It’s not the way the family wanted to fulfill their children’s dreams. Despite all the fire had taken from them, it’s the one thing the disaster can’t touch.
If you would like to donate to Little Rose Farm, there is a CashApp account $littleroserescue.
The family also has an Amazon wish list to help them replace some of the belongings they lost in the fire.