‘Grief and Outrage’: LA Wildfire Survivor Shares Advice for the Displaced

The original version of this article appeared on The Inertia.

---

On January 8, a scattering of wildfires in Los Angeles turned into the apocalypse. As Bad Religion once sang, “Palm trees are candles in the murder winds.” The Santa Ana winds howled throughout the night, and with the dawn came almost unbelievable scenes of devastation. The Palisades Fire torched entire communities. The Eaton Fire turned Altadena into a scene from Hell. The Hurst fire rages on as well.

As the dawn broke, thousands of people are facing a reality no one should have to.

The coming days, weeks, and months will be extraordinarily hard, whether you’re Billy Crystal or just some regular person with a job at Whole Foods. I know this because I lost my Malibu surf shack in the Woolsey Fire of 2018. Although everyone deals with grief and loss differently, I do at least have an inkling of what some people are feeling today, and what they’ll be feeling as time wears on.

Know this: It’ll get better. But first, it’ll feel as though you’ve become unmoored at the cellular level.

2018 Woolsey Fire: I Lost Everything

A quick recap of my experience: I spent a few fun years building a little house in the Malibu hills. I mixed tons of cement by hand, carted innumerable pieces of lumber and plywood up the hill, turned every screw, banged every nail, plumbed all the water, and wired every outlet.

I smashed my thumbs a million times, swore at the damn house a million and a half times, and loved it more than any home I’ve ever lived in. Not because it was particularly nice (although I tend to think it was), but because I could — still can all these years later, in fact — picture every single thing inside those walls and out.

I can walk through it in my mind, opening drawers in the little bureau I painted blue and wiping the dust off the bookshelves I planed and sanded and stained from a rotten piece of cedar that somehow found its way to my neighbor’s yard. And then, in the span of a few short hours one afternoon in November, a raging inferno turned it all into a smoldering pile of ashes.

It was a big pill to swallow, but I’m pretty much over it now. I find the experience similar to the loss of a loved one. It never goes away, not really, but new experiences and memories pile on top of it, muffling it like fresh snow landing on old ashes. The grief and outrage are still there, but it’s quieter now; less infected and covered by a thick scar.

A friend of mine texted me this morning, asking if reading the news about the fires was bringing up old trauma. It’s not, I don’t think, but it makes me feel incredibly sad and helpless to know how so many thousands of people are feeling as I sit here writing from my couch in Canada. A fire is in the fireplace and my dog is lying on one of my arms, making typing difficult.

The air outside is fresh and it rained last night. Thinking back to the morning after the Woolsey Fire, when I was scared, exhausted, and filled with dread and questions, I can smell the smoke. I can see the blood-red dawn, the sun’s weak rays filtering through immeasurable choking clouds of smoke.

I can see the tear-streaked faces of people on the streets, and I can still smell the perfume of a stranger who hugged me in the grocery store after she noticed I had ashes on my shoes. I don’t wish those memories on anyone, and it breaks my heart to know how many people are making them today.

Learning How to Cope

In my experience, the first few days after something that changes your life forever are a blur. If I’m being honest with myself, I barely remember the first two days after Woolsey.

I know that I spent them driving through checkpoints on the Pacific Coast Highway, bouncing from shelter to shelter, looking for my aunt whose property I lived on, but I don’t actually remember a lot of it. I did, however, learn a few things about what one might feel when your life is flipped on its head, which I will attempt to impart here.

Take Stock of What You Have and Be Grateful

In my particular case, I was left with a passport, a surfboard, a speargun, and a bag of dirty laundry. The night before the Woolsey Fire, I had returned from Mexico and I was too dumb and tired and naive when I scrambled to evacuate to grab anything else. I didn’t want to think I would never return home, so I simply told myself I’d be back soon. I was not.

It’s easy to dwell on the things you lost — and I’m not telling you not to be sad for those losses — but it can be very, very hard to think of good things in your life when it seems as though everything is bad. Take a breath. You are alive. The sun will rise and set again, and you will be there to see it. There are people who love you. You can restart, no matter how difficult it is.

And you will.

Accept Help

A friend set up a GoFundMe after I lost my house. I desperately needed it, yet I was mortified. I was basically broke, thousands of miles from my hometown, and didn’t even have enough gas money to make the drive back. My aunt was lost (I did eventually find her with her cat, lying in a sad little cot in a school gym, I think), and I had absolutely no idea what the future held, and I needed time to figure it out.

Accept help if it’s offered. Ask for help if you can. Take advantage of programs designed for situations like these, like Airbnb’s joint effort with 211 to get people under roofs if they need roofs to be under. I’m a prideful man and have a hard time accepting help, but there are times in life when you need it. Take it.

This Too Shall Pass

I hate this saying, because it minimizes the feelings at the moment. But clichés are clichés for a reason, and this one is particularly pertinent.

As I said before, the feelings don’t really go away, but they change. In the years since 2018, I have built another house — well, stripped a total dump back to the studs and rebuilt it — and moved on. I’m just now beginning to think of the Malibu house (the Dirt Pit, as I called it) with fondness instead of sadness. I’m starting to feel grateful that I experienced that time of my life, instead of mourning its passing.

All chapters must end, and some chapters end horribly, but there are more pages in your book. You’re writing your story right now. Write a story you love, despite this enormous setback.

Reach Out to Others

You might need help right now, and yes, you should accept it. But there’s an old saying that goes like this: He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own. Helping others does a few things, aside from just being the right thing to do.

It’ll take your mind off your own problems, which, if you’re anything like me, is a tough thing to accomplish. It’ll help you to appreciate the fact that you’re not alone in your misery. Shared troubles are less troublesome, after all. Helping a neighbor or the Red Cross makes you feel as though you’re part of a community, something that is lacking in many communities.

Many hands make light work, as they say, and lifting yourself is a heavy job.

Let Yourself Be Sad

Sadness is a funny thing. You can generally stuff it down your gullet until it is compacted somewhere inside, but it’s still there. It’ll remain there, festering like an old wound, doing nothing good for you.

Let yourself be sad. For a few years, I would often find myself lying in bed, mentally beginning to walk through my old house. I would stop myself from doing it because I didn’t want those feelings. I would think about anything else to avoid it.

But one day, I decided to take that walk. In my mind, I wandered through that little house, opening every drawer and leafing through the books on the shelf beside my bed. I looked through the glass panes in the ceiling at the oaks swaying above and listened to the coyotes howling in the hills.

It broke my heart all over again, but the next night I did it again. And again and again and again. I did it this morning. Now, I don’t want to forget it. I want to remember it and celebrate it for what it was. If I hadn’t let myself feel sad, I don’t know that I ever would have stopped feeling sad.

To anyone out there who is affected by the fires in Los Angeles, whether you’re in the Palisades or Altadena or anywhere else, we’re behind you. We’re rooting for you.

You’re strong enough to make the next step, and I — a total stranger — can’t wait for you to do it.