I felt a glimmer of optimism as I saw the basket being taken out of the vehicle. My son and his family fled their house so that they could sleep without worrying that they might be forced to leave in the middle of the night. We had a bed prepared for the three of them, and their three-year-old was already asleep.
The next day, they discovered that their phones had failed to send them the evacuation instructions that were supposed to have warned them hours earlier. Everyone was persuaded to get their belongings and go because of the brilliant flames in the east that were reaching out for them.
They were unaware that their area would be completely destroyed only hours after they left. The electricity was turned out for the whole neighborhood as they were stopping to say farewell to their friends who were across the street. It was a foreboding comment that decided the issue for their neighbors, who followed their example.
By eleven that night, they were secure in our house; we spoke cheerfully, comfortably, our initial terror dissipating. A serenity that would disappear before daybreak.
Throughout the night, thousands of Altadena people, old money and new money types, lost everything. My son and cousin were among them.
The incredulity, the calm thought, is giving way to… to what? Will I become furious next? And, if so, at whom? My child’s house is smoking in a heap, a complete loss. Why? Too many great individuals have been brought to their knees. Not in prayer, mind you, but sheer anguish.
I need to relieve the pressure building up in my spirit. Gently.
I still find the notion of a soul beneficial when examining my humanity. Even as an atheist. The soul, to me, is the inner sanctuary where we digest what occurs out there. Where we separate the irrational from the reasonable, adjust the ratio of reason and emotion as we react to the cacophony. It’s where I go to prepare for a fight. A basis upon which one launches out to face the adversary. It is not a place to hide when other spirits are squirming, uttering trepidations. Will I go bankrupt? How will we rebuild? Should we return to that place? How can we rehabilitate it as a home? Can we ever feel secure in the foothills again?
That central processing unit teeters on a continuum, healthy with the correct quantity of adrenaline, sputtering if overloaded. Will it rise to the occasion in this, our hour of need? I can only hope it will. The faith I hold today, after cleansing the religious notion from my thoughts, is in the human spirit. A kernel of optimism that’s now buried in ashes.
That kernel, along with the cedar and pine cones so emblematic of Altadena’s environment, may not reappear where they now lay. The next disaster, waiting in the wings, is floods. The rainy season in Southern California is always a hazard following the fires. Life choices and untamed waterways may have more to teach us.
But those kernels, both real and symbolic, will come to settle someplace. And I choose to trust, to reason, that from such teachings, we Angelenos will regain our feet.
But until the smoke clears, I keep the course and bridle my tongue. Best to listen, to let vent. We each take our turns in this home. The mind steeling itself for the hordes of ideas, waiting for an opportunity to remind us of the riches lost and the wonderful memories enmeshed in them.
Such is the reality exerting itself in our dreams and, when we wake.
Their phones, my son and daughter-in-law, are exploding up. Enough clothes to supply a thrift shop are available, a reassuring example of the deep bench their social network offers. And all for one three-year-old, who has no idea that her impeccably curated room, which her mother constructed around a family treasure, a daybed, formerly hers and which her two cousins once slept in, (that I fashioned with love and pride). Gone forever.
As parents and grandparents, losing their house, or ours, would have been an acceptable price to pay simply to know they are safe, although distressed, and spinning; each whisper, between husband and wife, listing this and that thing, a mountain of "sweat equity," emptied out in a matter of hours. The meticulously woven accouterments, which made their "home," their loving feathery nest, are now expressed in past tense.
Hearing about a single buddy who protected his house by not evacuating has pestered my child because he opted to pack up and go. He’ll analyze it at his own rate.
Two days after awakening in the safety of our house and hearing confirmation of their loss, my son wanted to go see for himself. So, he and I went there, parked a mile plus from his house, and climbed past the police barriers, wondering how others had slipped in with their automobiles. We trekked a mile until a guy, his home still intact, volunteered to transport us the remaining six blocks. Back on foot for the final block, we dodged a toppled power pole, flames still shooting from the scar where it shattered. Also on the road, a big pepper tree that presumably toppled owing to the hurricane-force winds lay unburned. On foot, we pushed by, brushing past the very top sprigs already reaching the far side of the road.
And then we turned the bend and entered his cul-de-sac. That stroll should have prepared us for what was following.
We passed lots of diversions as we ascended the sloped streets, struggling to breathe air through our P95 respirators, and grateful we had them. At the junction of N. Marengo and E. Calaveras, we stood with a group of other pilgrims compelled to take a rest. A leaning power pole, one of many, down or teetering, had called a fire squad to put up caution tape over the whole road. While the danger was pointed out (it was not evident), our small company of strangers, suddenly on common ground, broke the stillness that we kept while we traveled up the hill together. Some were with friends and associates, as was I; others were quiet as the extent of damage left little hope for any of their houses. One guy had not heard from a buddy since the fire and promptly picked his other way, alone, without a mask, morbidly focused. The squad of firemen was called away as we dispersed.
We took a five-gallon bucket and a few tools (just in case his VW bug was drivable). Early images, supplied by pals (who arrived before officials were organized), submitted photos that verified the VW bug and a row of shrubs adjacent had miraculously not burnt. He’d have to hot-wire the automobile since the keys, and many like it, were in a puddle beneath a slab of stucco where the front door formerly stood.
Left behind in my vehicle, parked below the barrier, were numerous tools we’d packed, just in case. A garden hose and a dolly to fetch a stone pagoda, which his wife asked, “if possible.". But the only equipment in the five-gallon bucket we packed that proved helpful was a crescent wrench my son used to cut off open gas valves in a dozen houses. Those not cut off by families leaving generated a whooshing noise. Some fed a dancing torch; others merely waited for a spark to eat. I’m sure it was soothing to deny those monsters.
“This is my neighborhood," he said as I attempted to stop him from taking chances that appeared too perilous. He needed to assist, to do something practical in the face of the absolute despair. Often, he could not reach the valve, a perimeter of flames shooting out from behind bits of stucco, snapping flames, laughing behind spiked wrought iron fences, yet standing tall and purposely prepared to cause damage. The homes they defended, dust and ash.
But while I was there by his side strolling past that carnage and watched as he examined the ruins of his house, I recalled the recent third birthday of our granddaughter; it was not my home that lay ruined. It was his family’s. We each had our own pain and viewpoint. Enough to put me mute, to leave him to it.
The VW Bug has two flat tires but otherwise was unharmed. It would take a forensics specialist to explain how, just fifteen feet away, a pool of melted metal (the aluminum block of his VW bus) gleamed on top of the singed earth. Aluminum melts at 1220 degrees Fahrenheit. I snapped a snapshot of a book and a fire extinguisher undisturbed in the rear seat of the bug. The title of the book is Principles of Heat Transfer.
Altadena was a tightly knit community of friendly neighbors who prided themselves on their capacity to share. Ever heard of Buy Nothing? It’s an app that offers a platform for a particular geographical community to lend helpful products that are not required on a day-to-day basis. The day following, my son got a text from a neighbor who had borrowed a soil tamper from him. I lost my house. Sorry about your tamper. My kid had the perfect reaction. Me too. He had recently returned a tile cutter to another neighbor a few days before the conflagration, which also died, however, in its own house.
The whole community, proud of its interdependency, will require such talents as they set out to rebuild.
Many who resided in Altadena had links to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, where my son works as a robotics engineer. (He’s presently undergoing “driving lessons” so he can operate the current Mars rover.) I appreciate hearing about the projects he and the crew are working on. Open house is always fun.
The gentle hills of Altadena housed a brain trust of engineers and experts, all part of our nation’s space effort. But more than that, they are and remain friends. They enjoyed life together. Their children were growing up together. They’ve all been split geographically, some commuting a hundred miles to support each other, the one thing the fire could not devour. Just let it seep in for a minute.
The communal dynamic, based on their closeness to one another, was an enormous gift that reverberates in the voice of my granddaughter when she asks about her friends’ houses, not that she, at three years old, can realize what they’ve collectively lost. “We’ll have to have someone come and fix it, Mommy. Daddy can help.” Her papa already assured her he’d repair it. “He’s an excellent fixer," she informed us.
Since awakening the morning after and confirming the death, it’s been the lilting voice of that wonderful young child that keeps me from concentrating on the immense loss they face.
I remind myself to take a breath. Time is the only thing that, if managed correctly, can quiet the agony and nourish the desire to rebuild; each day, taking a dosage of self-compassion while taking one concrete step towards the future.
In the meanwhile, I’ll examine the images of and the memories spent creating the solid mahogany crib I constructed for our eldest grandchild, which his sibling and later cousin took their first sleeps in.
And there was the original “Legata” music stand, inspired by my teenage son playing his guitar, cross-legged on his bed, music strewn out over the mattress. (A birthday present I finally mass-produced.)
The kitchen he commissioned me to design and install and the endless praises from his friends who hung out there.
The fish in the aquaponics / Koi tank, which my daughter-in-law mourns. A dress she wore when they said, I do. A scarf he looked so lovely in, the shirt he wore when he asked her out for the first time.
I have not spoken the obvious: “Our home, the home where you grew up, son, is yours for as long as it takes.”
The procedure will take years, not months.
FEMA? We’ll see whether President Carter’s forethought can preserve its fit and polish, as does the soldier at the Tomb of the Unknown, an arm of compassion saluting in the spirit of an America I am proud of. An America that will remain “great,” as long as we can recall the invitation of Lady Liberty.
I began writing this a week ago, which marks one week since our lives changed. Accustomed to a peaceful house, I now occupy the same place with my son, daughter-in-law, our three-year-old granddaughter, and two dogs. I write, putter, and sometimes maintain the home while my wife works a mile away at a small school. We are adapting, learning when to talk and when to keep our tongues, slipping in alone time, a few minutes at a time. Doing everything we can to make our loved ones comfortable. We are waiting with them to find the best course ahead, knowing we are not alone in this battle.
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