Last week, you read about Heather’s evacuation from the ranch and the loss of her parents’ house in Fountaingrove. This week, the story continues…
So, we’re all still here. My family, my friends. My friend’s families. We’ve lost a lot. Some more than others, but in some form or fashion we are all still here. But we aren’t OK. At least I’m not, and I’m trying to be OK with that.
In the movie “Sully,” there’s a great line between the captain and co-pilot where the captain mentions that the airline is making counseling available. The co-pilot then cracks, “Oh great. What are they going to say? You were in a plane crash and lived, it might have some effect on your day-to-day.”
That about sums up how I’m feeling. My house is fine. My family, my animals are all fine. My parents’ home is gone. But we’re all safe. It doesn’t change the fact that a fire was coming towards my farm from three directions, or that I dodged flames while evacuating my parents, or that I evacuated 53 animals. But we’re all home and fine.
So how come I can’t sleep? How come every strange noise or gust of wind sends me scampering to the windows to stare at the horizon? Why does it feel like every hour I think of one more thing lost in my parents’ home? Why does it sometimes feel like the more trivial the item the more painful the loss?
True story: I cried this morning when I realized the assembly directions to my son’s Lego Charizard were at my parent’s house. He cried when the leg came off two weeks ago and we couldn’t figure out how to fix it, so I said, “next time we’re at grandma and grandpa’s we’ll find the directions and fix him.”
Except now I can’t fix him. Or any of this, really.
It looks like we’ll finally get to back to my folks’ house tomorrow. They’ve just announced the opening of their area. I’d like to think I’m ready, but I’m pretty sure I’m not. I can’t even imagine if they are.
I’m a native to this area, but my husband is not — he’s only lived here with me the last 11 years, but he’s done some driving around and it’s shaken him. I haven’t driven around yet, other than what I can see from the freeway. It’s not his landmarks and memories that are charred and disintegrated, it’s mine, but it’s effected him even so. I’m a little scared for when the time comes to see it all for myself.
Now that the smoke has cleared, I can see the burned scars on the hillsides that I missed earlier. They are both closer and farther away than I thought.
And yet I’m anxious. I can hardly make out the plumes any more and yet I feel them. I smell the smoke, I hear the crackles. I see the orange glow when I close my eyes.
And I haven’t lost anything directly. At best, I’m loss adjacent.
How must my parents be feeling? My friends, whose homes are gone? My sleep is uneasy. Theirs must be nonexistent.
I’ve heard a lot of wondering about how this is going to change our community. And I’ve heard every answer from “We’ll bounce back!” to “We’ll never recover!” I suspect the answer is somewhere in between, but I don’t feel particularly confident of an answer yet. It’s hard to think I’ll ever feel the same again.
Fire leaves scars on the land, some of them visible for hundreds or thousands of years. Tree rings show us the scars of fires that took place when mammoths roamed the plains. These fires will leave scars on us, too. Places that will never quite be the same as they were before. But just as the trees heal around their scars, so shall we.
I just hope I’ll get some sleep before then.
