Picking Up The Pieces.

You can be “the other guy.” It can happen to you. Live by that mindset to remind you to be diligent, to plan ahead, be prepared. Have a plan no matter how rudimentary it may seem. Talk about what you would do in the event of a fire, earthquake, flood. Have an “escape bag” that you can grab and go, filled with essential papers, meds, jewelry. Know who’s going to do what. Think of it as disaster planning for your life. It could be the difference between life and death.

Steve

Ground Zero

The neighborhood was open to residents on October 21, 2017. Sonoma County, FEMA, the SRPD, County Sheriff, Highway Patrol, and the National Guard joined forces to assure residents could return safely to their homesites and to prevent looting.  Access to the area was strictly controlled by local law enforcement or National Guard troops stationed at every entrance, checking each vehicle for the proper credentials. Residents were provided safety kits containing goggles, air-filtering masks, gloves and a bucket to use as a collection vessel for whatever was recovered.

After obtaining our kit and credentials, we entered at the Fountaingrove checkpoint, meandering slowly up the hill, aghast at the destruction we saw — and didn’t see. Some structures spared, others piles of twisted metal and mysterious debris, trees scorched, some fallen, others standing in defiance, burned out vehicles, tires and wheels burned to the ground, parked in ghostly driveways leading to a wasteland where once stood its home.

We were driving through nature’s war zone.

When we reached the top of the hill and turned onto Parker Hill, the entrance to Tuscany, our development where 56 homes once stood, the full magnitude of the furious fire was laid out before us. Not a single home was standing, all reduced to piles of unrecognizable rubble, trees scarred or destroyed, twisted metal sculptured into grotesque forms, a scorched landscape dotted with pockets of surviving vegetation, their color and hues in sharp contrast to the black and grey rubble. A few remnants of infrastructure remained standing among the flattened homes, somehow surviving the consuming fury of the fire.

Fire Station No 5, about two-tenths of a mile from our home, was completely leveled, the steel structure of the water control system the only hint that it once played a key role in supporting resident safety.

We turned down the private driveway that led to our home and the other three homes that shared it. We paused at the top of the common driveway, gasping in disbelief. All four homes were gone, a few parts of the respective structures mysteriously still standing. It was inconceivable that four large, two-story homes could be reduced to a relatively small area of charred remains.

We pulled into the vacant area of our driveway, parked next to Lusi’s completely destroyed Fusion.The metal from the aluminum wheels had solidified into free flowing rivulets, its windows completely shattered, the interior laid bare, the body of the car junkyard ready.

We exited our car, donned the masks provided for protection from the toxic particulates that permeated the area. Seeing what was left of our home, standing in the driveway from which we escaped, seeing the fire’s fury up close, the full magnitude of the disaster was driven home. We held each other for comfort while we sobbed. It was painful beyond words.

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We wandered around the ruins in disbelief, looking for anything that could be salvaged. It was immediately apparent that the lower level was beyond salvage as the upper level had completely collapsed and buried it and all it held. We started gingerly rummaging through the the upper level debris, careful to avoid glass shards and metal spears, unrecognizeable forms and shapes of materials. It was a dangerous task.

We left a few hours later, exhausted from the physical and emotional stress of walking around and through the graveyard of our life.

We returned several times with our dear friends whose love and support made the scavenger hunt at least bearable. They carefully filled their homemade sifter with debris, shaking it slowly so as not to discard anything that might have emotional or financial value. We were able to approximate the location of our master closet and focused on trying to find the in-wall safe. We found it buried about two feet under the debris in the back of the collapsed garage. The steel frame safe was intact, but the heat had popped the door open. 

The contents were either damaged or completely destroyed, but a couple pieces of Jane’s jewelry survived with varying degrees of damage, some of which proved to  be repairable. Despite hours of searching and sifting, we could not find Jane’s Mother’s wedding ring. A really tough loss.

Our other “fireproof” safe was fairly easy to find in what was left of the laundry room: it was a stack of what appeared to be white pulp, easily spotted because of the stark contrast with the scorched black and gray ash around it. It was the cremated remains of important documents we had placed in it weeks before, after closing our bank safety deposit box.

Over the course of the next couple weeks, we took a few more trips to the ruins, each excursion yielding less and less, dashing any hope we had of finding something, some part of something, anything we could rescue and include in our life going forward.

We took our meager findings to my sister’s garage where we laid them out in a makeshift mortuary, trying to identify their DNA, evaluating the potential for repair. 

In addition to the jewelry, we salvaged a beautiful ceramic swan, once gold plated, now blackened inside and out. It had been passed on to Jane through two generations. The family lore attributed the origin to the 1906 Worlds’ Fair. It was still intact, its finish now scorched to an uneven gray and black.

It would later be restored by our local jeweler, a compassionate and empathetic woman whose love was obvious in her actions and artistry. She hand finished the exterior with gold leaf; the interior was left in its scorched state as permanent reminder of our survival.

We believe the swan survived to remind us of the qualities we would need to forge our new life. We are inspired by its presence.

Swan is a symbol of grace, beauty, devotion, love, fidelity, purity, peace, partnership, elegance, energy, protection, calmness, creativity, and transformation. Combining the elements of air and water, they also embody eternal life.

Theastrologyweb.com

Transformation

The shell of Lusi’s car rested silently on the concrete of the driveway, destined to be violently crushed and then dropped into some unknown junkyard. Several times we looked at the rivulet of worthless melted aluminum that once represented four of the spokes on the car’s rear wheel. The shape had a flowing quality to it and Jane thought we might be able to make a sculpture out of it, so we carefully collected it, wrapped it in bubble wrap and stored it.

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Shortly after we moved into our new home, we contacted a metal artist and asked him if he could make a sculpture from the aluminum remnant. The sculpture is pictured below.

The forward element was face up next to the wheel, the back piece was face down on the driveway pavement. The artist mounted the pieces on a half inch steel platform. The dramatic sculpture has many symbolic elements, including animal shapes and embedded pieces of glass on the back piece whose rough surface is the impression of the driveway concrete.

The overall feeling is one of frenzied motion, fleeing, escaping. We see it everyday on our library shelf, a constant reminder of the chaos of our escape and the transformation of our life.

From A to Z

Some of the things destroyed in the fire we lost were irreplaceable, like the dozens of albums of pictures – weddings, birthdays, graduations, reels of eight-millimeter film from Jane’s childhood, one of a kind artwork and furniture, jewelry and a myriad of keepsakes from our travels around the world. 

We had ample time and opportunities to preserve our cherished photos and film, ample time to scan them or convert them to digital files, ample time to upload them to the “cloud”. So many times we looked at the albums, film cans and slide boxes, each time acknowledging that “we need to do something with all this”. And that was the extent of what we did. Our regrets for this procrastination will be with us always. Don’t let it happen to you.

Steve

Most of the things lost were things that make life work — furniture, kitchenware, clothes TVs, shoes, cars and on and on. It was mind boggling to try to remember of all the things that were turned to ash, so many of which would have to eventually be replaced as part of our new life.

But remembering was exactly what was required to do by all insurers: every piece of personal property had to be documented in detail in order to collect the contracted personal property coverage.

Documentation was to include when and where we purchased an item and the price we paid for everything we could recall, from the number of avocados in the refrigerator to the number of Ziploc bags in the pantry. While we had several pictures of furniture and artwork, receipts and letters of authenticity were now ashes as we regrettably didn’t think to develop a digitized vault for insurance documentation.

We worked on our inventory every day. It felt like we were being forced to relive every horrible moment of the fire, invariably envisioning how each piece had been consumed in the inferno. Time was of the essence. Even though we had two years to complete the inventory, submitting partials along the way, each day our recall was less focused, the particulars less clear.

I stared at each line entry, trying to remember the details, straining to recall each nook and cranny, cupboard, library shelf, tabletop, wall, drawer. Room by room we sifted through our memories, verifying details, gathering what phoots we had for inclusion in the worksheet, wondering how long it took for the inferno to transform the items into grotesques figures or anonymous ash.

The process added new dimensions to the meaning of cruel and unusual punishment. As I said in my letter to our adjustor, we were being crushed by  “… the persistent stress of trying to build a new life while trying to build an inventory of the one we lost. It is a depression-inducing task, stressful punishment for having done nothing wrong…” I was angry, frustrated and at times overwhelmed.

We weren’t alone in facing the egregious personal property task. The hotel lobby soon became a gathering place for lawyers and inventory consultants willing to help with the inventory, or to file a suit for a percentage of the total settlement. While well-intentioned, it nevertheless felt like the lobby had been invaded by vultures hovering over the road kill of peoples’ hopes and dreams.

We decided that we would appeal to the State Insurance Commissioner for empathy and compassion and some relief from the requirement. Many others did the same as outrage over how the victims were being treated grew louder with each passing day. We plodded along everyday driven by wishful thinking that we would soon be relieved of the burden.

Our daily routine also included follow-up calls with our insurance adjuster, attending informational meetings and updates. We enrolled in the FEMA debris removal program, requested new Social Security cards, new driver’s licenses, marriage license, birth certificates and other important documents.

Shopping for replacement clothes, shoes, eyeglasses and other longer-term needs like dishes, silverware, utensils, pots and pans, bed linens and, of course, furniture, was an almost daily occurrence as we started to accumulate the bits and pieces that make life work.

The most indelible lesson is that things are not what is important. It’s the memories associated with them — memories of the people in our lives and the love we share. Fire can destroy things but it can’t take away memories — only time can do that.

Jane

Returning from one visit to the site, I began to feel unwell as we approached the hotel. My left arm was tingling, I was flush and felt faint. Luckily my friend was driving, and we arrived in the valet area in about a minute where Jane was waiting for me so we could run a few errands. Instead, she drove me to ER where for the next five hours they checked everything that made me tick.

I was fine. A stress-induced syncope was the diagnosis. Rest and reduced stress was the remedy, both highly unlikely as we struggled to stay afloat in a pool of swirling emotions: anger, denial, hope, frustration, self-pity, guilt, gratitude, uncertainty and grief. And there was a growing sense of relief. With each passing day, the fire was further behind us, the future was inching nearer.

But of all the emotions swirling about, the one that stood out for us was that of vulnerability. For the first time in our lives, our sense of security was gone. We could no longer look forward to the comfort and safety of our home, the presence and love of our resident family, the cozy curl-up in the bed we had slept in for over 30 years.

Our hope was the new life we were trying to build, piece by piece, tear by tear, would ease our sense of vulnerability, but it was the love and support of family and friends, old and new, that began to give us a greater sense of security, allowing us to move forward on the path to a new normal, one more informed about the precarious nature of life and the need to cherish each day.

As we awaited details on the debris removal process, our new home in Reno demanded our presence. On November 11, we drove to Reno for what was scheduled to be a two-day selection process for the myriad of details we had to choose so construction could begin in earnest. Weather in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, however, forced us to condense the activity to one day, a twelve-hour marathon that left us reeling, but feeling good about what we had accomplished.

Our Santa Rosa lot was certified for debris removal on November 17, with no specific date for the process other than in the next thirty days. We would be given twenty-four-hour notice so we could be there when what was left of our museum would be scrapped, loaded into a front loader and dumped into waiting haulers then whisked off to some anonymous graveyard in Sonoma County.

Knowing we had some time and feeling in dire need of a change of routine and scenery, we set off for Indianapolis to celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends in the Hoosier State.