TECUMSEH, Mich. — "Say brie, like the cheese, say cheese" is what Sabrie Dalton uses as an ice breaker and explanation of how to pronounce her name. The positive and upbeat 23-year-old is currently staying in Belleville, Michigan.
Her home was in Tecumseh, Michigan, until it exploded on Nov. 1.
"We got a call from my neighbors and they were sobbing, saying 'your house exploded and there's flames in the garage,'" Dalton said.
She watched her childhood home be reduced to ashes and rubble over a FaceTime call.
Dalton is an avid reader and had tons of books shelved in her home.
"The pages all over the ashes and fuddling around in the wind, it was hard to see," she said.
It wasn't just the pages of past memories that were lost either, pieces of the future were lost too. She was set to marry her fiance Adam Stacey on June 17, 2023, -- the self-described math nerds picked the date because 6 plus 17 equals 23 -- but multiple items for the wedding couldn't be saved.
"My wedding shoes, my mother's wedding stuff which we were going to be taking pieces of that and putting it onto my dress or just figuring out ways to take it with us, we had beautiful antique chairs that are just gone, our wedding bands and then my wedding dress," Dalton said.
The reason the family wasn't in the home is an unfortunate one, but Dalton believes it saved their lives.
"My papaw was just diagnosed with stage four colon cancer so we went to his house to help take care of things at their house and my dad was at the hospital with his dad," she said. "As much as it breaks my heart that papaw has stage four colon cancer, that saved our lives completely and we've been told on multiple accounts because nothing short of that would have made us leave our home."
The tragic story has also grabbed the attention of many outside her small town of Tecumseh.
A bridal shop north of Detroit ordered her same dress free of charge, a neighboring church hosted a cookie walk to raise money and family members set up a GoFundMe for other expenses.
"It's just been a lot of blessings in a time of darkness," Dalton said.
Fire officials and investigators are expected to go to the home on Friday to figure out the cause of the explosion.
"Nothing but the grace of god could have done this," Dalton said. "Every professional that has seen this has said, 'you would not have survived the initial explosion, because it was an explosion, not just a house fire.'"