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.

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.

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.

Giving Thanks

We had a tremendous amount to be thankful for, headlined by the fact we were alive, still had my Mom, had made good progress in adapting to our changed life, and had a continuous outpouring of love, well wishes and gifts from family and friends. We welcomed the chance to focus on the holiday and enjoy time away from the constant presence of our loss.

We were in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner when Jane received a call from FEMA. It was our twenty-four notice that our lot would be cleared the next day. Jane was incredulous.

We had to be there.

Couldn’t they delay until we returned on Monday?

Why now, when just days before we were told it would not be until sometime in December?

The answer was no on a delay. The explanation for “why now” was their intent to clear a neighbor’s lot the following day. Jane made several calls trying to reach someone who could help. We wanted desperately to be there in case we spotted some remnant we could rescue. Even though we knew it would be painful to watch our life’s work scraped and gobbled up by front loaders, it was a pain we felt would be worthwhile if it yielded just one small memory.

It wasn’t meant to be.

When we returned on December 1st, our homesite was the only cleared. The wheels of bureaucracy had somehow ground to a halt after our lot was cleared. The unprecedented scope of the disaster no doubt contributed to the mix-up. Theirs was a painful, thankless job which under the circumstances was executed quite well over the ensuing months.

The only visible clue that our home once stood was the lower level foundation which had been left as a retaining wall to prevent erosion from the predicted winter rains. Yellow tape outlined the boundaries of the site. It looked like a restricted crime site.

The anguish we felt was breathtaking. It was truly gone.

Transition

We spent the rest of December focused on acquiring things we would need down the road, including furniture that would take months to be delivered. Many of the merchants were very generous in offering discounts to fire victims, most notably Macy’s who extended the discount for one year. The hotel made our life as pleasant as it could be, accommodating our every need, including upgrading us to a suite on the ground floor so Pogo’s daily walks didn’t have to include a ride on a scary elevator.

Christmas was a low-keyed family dinner, the normal joy of the holiday subdued by the circumstances. Compassion was the main course, love the spirit of the day. Our gift was being there.

Empathy from our friends and neighbors, the only ones who could truly put themselves in our shoes, helped sustain our cautiously optimistic spirit. The “Fab Five,” as we called ourselves, spent New Year’s Eve together as we had for the past several years. We had a lovely dinner, exchanged love and hugs, and wishes for better days for all of us in 2018.

The new year took an encouraging direction in early January when insurance companies, under pressure from the California Insurance Commissioner, instituted changes in their personal property requirements. Some of the insurance companies waived the requirement entirely. Our insurer, Farmers Group, was the first to do so, a move that assured our continued loyalty to them. Our adjuster informed us of their decision to pay us the full insured amount in early January. It was just what the doctor ordered. A giant weight was lifted from our shoulders, our spirits soared and our step took on a livelier gait.

Insurance is not your enemy. It may seem that all you do is pay, but without it you may never recover from a disaster or huge loss. Don’t decide insurance coverage based solely on cost. Your policy is basically a contract, and, regardless of the value of what you lose, you “get what you paid for.” Understand the terms of your policy. Take pictures of your home inside and out, artwork, jewelry, furniture, closets. Keep the pictures and a list of their origin and cost in a safe place — the “cloud” or a bank vault if possible. Be sure you’re comfortable with your personal property coverage and understand the requirements you may face in the event of a disaster.

Jane

After 109 days in the Hyatt Regency, we moved into an apartment a few miles away. The staff and management were saddened to see us go, as were we to leave. The love and support they provided was a balm that eased our pain and reminded us of all that is good about our country.

As we settled into our apartment, construction of our home in Regency at Damonte Ranch in Reno sputtered along. A late April/early May completion date became a moving target as delays from weather and available labor and materials bogged down the build. The same fire that destroyed our home was now siphoning off resources needed to build our new one.

A trip to Reno in mid-February was discouraging: the framing was done, not much else. The close date was slipping even as we walked through the wooden skeleton. We returned to Santa Rosa uncertain of when we would be moving, hoping it would, at worst, coincide with our six-month rental contract that expired at the end of July.

Jane spent countless hours exchanging emails, voicemails, and conversations, drilling deep into the minutia of home construction. The process was complicated by the number of subcontractors involved, personnel changes, misunderstandings and the sheer volume of details she was managing. It was as mind-boggling as the inventory, but with each decision, each weekly update, each check mark, the house and our future in it became more real.

The last tether to our Santa Rosa home was severed on March 25th when we sold our lot to a developer. Our home had officially been relegated to history.

The relief of eliminating the final piece was overcome by the grief we were facing with Mom’s declining health.

Farewell
As we waded through the details of the building process, we did so with ever-increasing heavy hearts: Mom’s health was slipping, and her will to live was being eroded by the relentless forces of aging. She went into hospice care in my sister’s home in early March and passed peacefully on the 28th, surrounded by family. She left us just seven months short of her 100th birthday.

I held her hand as she took her final breath. For the first time in my 73 years, my mother was no longer with me. The loss of our home and the things in it paled by comparison. On May 5th, we held a celebration of her life, attended by family and friends from near and far. It was a lovely good-bye to a lovely woman whose beautiful smile I see everyday.

Steve

A Moving Experience

Mid-June saw us headed for Reno for an onsite inspection and progress report, with a hope that we would be able to close before the end of the month, which was the close of the company’s fiscal year. We were skeptical, knowing how important year-end booked sales were to things like profits and bonuses. We anticipated compromises were awaiting us.

It was apparent very quickly on the walkthrough that the end of June was not feasible. Too much would have to be done while we were trying to move in. We said no, we wouldn’t close until the house was move-in ready. We were tired of all that had gone before and did not want to take on managing a team of contractors all working feverishly to bring the house to spec.

They agreed, noting that with our experience over the last several months, we deserved a completed home, something to buoy our spirits. The house in move-in condition would undoubtedly do that. We agreed that July 11th would be the closing date.

We returned to Santa Rosa, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel drawing closer. We had a couple weeks to organize the move. We made arrangements for a moving company to pack our accumulated necessities — linens, housewares, bedding, small appliances, dishes, some stereo equipment – no furniture. all of which was on order in three different cities and slated for delivery over the next three months.

Two days before our scheduled departure, more love came our way: my sister and Lusi arranged a surprise going-away dinner, (an event we would have sniffed out under normal circumstances!) Luckily we didn’t, and the surprise went off without a hitch. Family and friends helped ease the sadness of leaving, and we were so grateful that we got to see just about everybody who had helped, encouraged, supported and loved us following the fire.

It was a great Friday evening.

The next day, the moving company loaded the van with our possessions from the apartment and the storage unit. We scheduled delivery to Reno for the morning of July 12th, assuming we closed on the 11th. Our collective fingers were crossed that the plan would come together.

On Sunday we packed up our SUV with the essential apartment contents, pet food, meds, a couple days of clothes. We prepared Pogo and Minnie for the trip, said a tearful good-bye to my sister and headed to Reno, to a new home, a new life, filled with uncertainties balanced by optimism, and sadness mitigated by the joy of knowing we had made it. Lusi and her boyfriend, Rico, followed us in our escape car, the Lincoln MKZ and arrived in Reno ahead of us.

We did a final walkthrough on July 11th, signed off and closed in the late afternoon. We took possession, drove to our house, dropped off a few things from the SUV, hugged, shed some tears and headed back to the hotel for, hopefully, our last night without a home.

July 12th was a lovely day in Reno, 74 degrees at 8:00 a.m. It was also my 74th birthday, one I’ll never forget. Our first furniture delivery arrived from a local store on time at 8:00 a.m. In a matter of few minutes, we had our first furniture since the fire, the guest bed and mattress combo, a small dresser and table lamp.

The movers arrived shortly after the furniture. We spent the rest of the day unpacking, sorting and putting things away. Pogo and Minnie wandered around bewildered, probably wondering when their gypsy-like life would settle down.

That night we crawled into the guest bed, this time with proper sleeping attire. After settling in, Pogo snuggled between us as he had in the hotel that first night. His warmth and comfort was a welcome end to the busy day. We kissed goodnight, turned out the light and took a deep breath of relief.

We were home.

Epilogue

As of this writing, we have been settled into our new home for about six months. We have met numerous residents most of whom had recently moved in themselves. The many community activities have allowed us to mingle with the residents, share relocation stories, find common ground and establish new friendships. Their warm and welcoming compassion and love continues to soothe away the pain and sadness of our loss.

We are so happy to be here.