My computer came with Mocrosoft Word which I used to create documents. (It would alphabetize lists. A while back I had to have my computer cleaned. I have just discovered that the Microsoft Word program was removed. Is there a way I can restore it without having to “buy” it. (Since I already had it paid for I don’t want to purchase it again. I am afraid if I use the restore disk that came with my computer it will no longer have Mozilla Firefox (which wasn’t on my computer when purchased) which I now have to use to access ebay. I am terribly ignorant about computers and don’t know what the simple fix to this problem might be. 
You don’t say what kind of “cleaning” wiped out your Word program.
You can either reinstall everything from your recovery disk, but then you have to reinstall any software installed later, like Firefox, and reinstall all your personal settings, passwords etc.
Or forget about Word and install as an alternative the open source and free OpenOffice, which has a word processing program similar to MS Word called “Writer”, and is able to open Word documents and even save files as Word documents, if you need that.
What I particularly love about OpenOffice is the ease to create pdf files. I can just save the document as a pdf file (export it). pdf files are much better and safer to distribute than doc files.
Is the MS Word program really completely removed, or not functioning? Or has just the Start link/icon disappeared? If it’s just the icon, you can re-create it by locating the WinWord.exe file on your hard disk. If it’s otherwise “cocked up”, you can try fixing it via the Control Panel.
Note that you would not have to reinstall any other programs or data files, whereas a complete reload of your computer’s original configuration disc will, however, sometimes wipe out everything. Some reinstallations act as a repair instead, and thus may not affect other parts of the system.
I’d start with this instead:
In Windows XP, I can:
1: Start the “Control Panel”
2: select “Add or Remove Programs”
3: find the MS Word (or Office) program in the list, and select it
4: You’re then offered the choice of “Change” or “Remove”
5: Select “Change” and the Installer for the program will run
6: Select “Repair or reinstall”
Obviously, if the program was properly and completely removed, you may not find it in the list any longer.
If you have a different version of the Windows Operating System, there still should be an equivalent process.
Depending on your setup, the Repair may or may not request your original Setup CD for the computer.
What Hans said. Also check LibreOffice.
Thanks to all for suggestions. I went to openoffice and downloaded and it does everything I wanted and more. 