I step out of my car, greeted by the smell of stale smoke and the glow of stars in the sky like nothing had ever happened. If I only look up, I could imagine we went camping - but that would require ignoring the devastation around me. Welcome home.
It’s been a while. Almost 17 days exactly, yet it feels like a lifetime. Is that a glow on the horizon?! No, it’s just the city lights.. I’ll have to get used to those again. The hillside is dark - too dark. Pure blackness where there should be house lights. The quiet hum of the freeway is like a distant echo of the fire’s roar from that night.. or is it? Was that really what it sounded like? Did I make that all up? I rather wish I had. But whether or not the sound was all in my head, the reality of our new life here isn’t. Same old house, brand new world. No more same old neighbors. No more same old deep sleep. Now it’s boiling water to drink, keeping a go bag packed, and sleeping with one eye open. For how long? I wish I knew. That’s the problem when your old world goes away; you have a hard time putting 1 and 1 together again. It shouldn’t be hard - just shake it off and keep walking, right?? Yet somehow I have a hard time going inside. I’m frozen leaning against my car, waiting for something to happen that will make me get back in again. But I can’t stay out here all night... I’ve barely slept these past weeks as it is. My heart weeps and prays for those who don’t have a home to go back to tonight. If this shock is hard, I can’t imagine what that must feel like. Maybe I can, but not to the same extent. I shouldn’t have a house to come home to. The blackened hillside next to me reminds me of that. Our house was spared for a reason. Our family is blessed more than we could ever articulate or grasp. And why? Not so I can stand around outside, that’s for sure!! Or is it... I think, at the end of the day, it’s to be a light. My own flame feels like it’s flickering right now - even worse than when this all started, and too much for me to see myself being any kind of light for anyone else - but this too shall pass. This night, too, will fade, and the next and the next will too. And at the end of all those days all that matters is that I spent the time with the friends and family that matter most to me and that somehow something of mine made this world a little bit of a brighter place to live in, whether or not I get to sleep in my own bed at night.
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This is the story of the first night I cried after the fire.
In the midst of evacuating in the middle of the night and not being sure what we would have waiting for us when we ever got to go back, I still had faith that God was with us. I had faith we were in His hands and I trusted Him when I heard Him tell me our house would be spared. I even had peace about this as we watched everything else crumble down around us. Going to “bed” without knowing what we would wake up to in the morning got hard, but I still had faith that God was watching over me. Telling people our house was ok when we knew the hills were still on fire felt very premature, but we did it because we had faith that it would still be there when we went back. But one night I realized that I felt anything but OK and that that was OK. I had been hiding from my own feelings for days and enough was enough... I cried out to God, ashamed at the thought that I had lost faith in Him over such a simple thing as personal belongings, but He met me with an answer I did not expect: having faith doesn’t mean not feeling pain. Knowing God is good doesn’t make it hurt any less not to be able to go home at night - but it does give me peace that He is with me wherever I go. Sarah was considered righteous because she considered Him faithful who had made her a promise (Hebrews 11:11), but that didn’t stop her heart from hurting over all those years she went childless. It didn’t even stop her from laughing when she heard God’s plan to give her a baby when she was 90. Faith can still acknowledge the ridiculous. Faith can still feel the pain of waiting, separation, and loss. Faith can (and as I finally realized, should) cry when it feels the weight of sorrow and suffering. And so yes, I cried, and I cried hard. I cried as an outlet from the stress of leaving behind our home and all of the memories left inside. I cried because I didn’t know what would happen and it was scary either way. I cried because I saw the pain and distress in my family’s faces that mirrored what I had been feeling the entire time too. I cried because I felt the pain of many others in my community who we already knew HAD lost everything. And because even though things can be replaced, there is still something inside all of us that screams that no one should have to go through such terrible times as these. But even though I was crying, I found that it didn’t take away from my faith in God to redeem these situations. What defines faith is how you feel the pain, not whether or not you feel it. Do you wallow in your hopelessness, or give it to God, in whose hands you trust.. Do you shrivel in loneliness, or do you find a way to still smile and see God’s goodness in the every day.. Do you sink beneath the weight of loss, or do you allow the emotions to pass over you and then be replaced with the hope and joy of the promise you hold.. Having faith doesn’t mean being immune to pain, and trusting God doesn’t mean not feeling fear. It means that when I feel them I bring them back again to Him to help me process and make sense of, and in their place I gladly received the joy which runs over and peace that goes beyond my current understanding. He also showed it to me this way: faith doesn’t mean pretending the night isn’t dark; it means knowing that the night will only last for a time, and that it will be followed by a beautiful sunrise! So I encourage anyone going through a struggle like mine not to discredit your own faith just because you are burdened under the weight of pain or loss. Just like a man who lights a candle isn’t giving up on the day coming, we can and should allow ourselves to grieve and feel these heavy emotions healthily as we hold onto the promise of a new day. Sorry this post is so much longer than normal... I started writing down what I remembered of the fire on Sunday night and ended up spending 2 hours processing the whole first day. Even this feels extremely white washed and summarized, but I think it hits on the key elements of what went on. It still feels so much like a dream, I think I needed to write it all down just to help myself come to grips with the reality of it all. Anyways, if you were wanting to know what happened for our family on the first night of the fire, here it is: 10/9/17 I was awoken around 1am by John bursting through the door huffing “pack a bag NOW, there’s fire. This is not a joke” I scrambled to get dressed and shove some clothes into my backpack even though part of me was sure this was just John overreacting. It wasn’t. I stumbled outside to witness the entire horizon awash in the red glow that could only ever have been one thing. I heard God whisper "It’s going to be OK." What does that even mean?! This is obviously anything but OK! The next 20 minutes were spent in a mad clattering dash back and forth from the house to our cars - grabbing anything and everything we deemed important for our immediate or long-term survival. Each trip to the car included a wild survey of the horizon and the ever-increasing orange glow. Elora took to standing guard outside and keeping us updated so we could all go faster. I made three trips for clothes and random "necessities," then offered to help my parents with anything. I was entrusted with three passports, the guitar, pictures from the coast, and my dad’s carved fish. Of course, I grabbed the $100 bottle of perfume I’d just been given for my birthday and half a box of gluten free pancake mix but managed to forget to grab a second bra... I was the first to leave. With my parents still in the house collecting paperwork and the air filling with ash, I sped down the hill with a full car, my sister, and her cat. I hated leaving them, but there was nothing else I could do but get in their way. The neighborhood was in complete disarray. One woman had stopped her car in the middle of the road blaring her horn. I pulled up and tried asking her what she knew, but she just stared at me blankly. We didn’t have time for this. “WHAT?!” I finally yelled out of my window. She was in hysterics - crying that she didn’t know what to do. I told her to take a deep breath and to go to the coast because she’d be safe there. I drove away not knowing if we could afford to sit and talk any longer. The light was already growing stronger and people were behind me waiting to go. I got to the end of the street. Turn left or right? Going right down Faught road was the fastest way to Grammy’s house - our rendezvous point - but it was also too close for comfort to the direction that glow had been coming from. Trees blocked our view, but Elora didn’t think she saw fire down the winding road, so I took the risk and prayed I wasn’t dooming us both. Luck and God were with us; there was no fire and no traffic. We whizzed at barely safe speeds down to Shiloh. The light took so long to turn green I almost thought it was broken and was considering going through the empty red when it finally turned. People drove wildly in every direction as I crossed over the freeway and left the flaming hills behind me. It took the rest of my family way too long to get to Grammy’s. She had just woken up and I had to tell her what was going on. Elora waited in the car with Oliver (her cat), trying to calm him down. I paced. I finally got a garbled call from mom that she had left the house but was stuck in a gridlock in the very same neighborhood I had already left. I must have just missed the floodgates of traffic (already another miracle). Eventually dad showed up, but no sign of mom. They had gotten separated and she wasn’t answering her phone. Each breath was a silent and pleading prayer, fighting back tears I knew we had no time or place for. Nearly an hour after I had arrived, mom finally came. Both my brothers were unaccounted for - John had gone to wake up our uncle and his family, and Joe was driving straight into the flames to try to reach his fiance Grace. The next countless hours were spent trying to communicate with them, desperately searching for some way to figure out what was going on, and trying to decide what to do from here. The TV wouldn’t turn on, nor did our phones work. I could use my car radio, but I only had a half tank and no idea how far that would take us or how far it would need to take us. Grammy finally dredged out an old disaster kit with an emergency radio and we scrambled to find a working channel. Brief, unhelpful clips from the internet had us thinking there was fire on all sides: Mark West, coffee park, Hwy 101 South, Hwy 116 in Sebastepol, Conde ln (right down the street from us), Healdsburg... nowhere was safe and there was nowhere to go. We were blind in a bottleneck and it was the end of the world. It wasn’t long till my dad decided he couldn’t sit still. He went out on his first of a very many “recon” missions, which consisted of him being gone for hours without us knowing where he was or being able to call him. Finally, he came back and told us he had made it all the way back home. The fire was getting closer, but it hadn’t reached our house yet. He wanted to go back to grab some things we had forgotten in our first exodus. Mom hated the idea, but we all knew there was no stopping him. Likewise was there no way we would let him go alone again. Everyone volunteered, but I think we all knew from that first moment who would be the one to go: me. I very clearly stated my conditions: we would take every safety precaution we could, and if I at any point decided we needed to go he would not argue with me. He acquiesced and we geared up in our sturdiest jackets, tennis shoes, bananas, and gloves (my idea). The drive there was eerie and tense as we intentionally drew closer and closer to what I knew was an incredibly lethal and dangerous situation. I had insisted we take the Avalon because if we needed to turn and run I did NOT want to be stuck in his massive box truck! Not a soul was to be seen as we carefully drove through the neighborhood and up our steep hill. Our eyes darted up every driveway and around every turn, ready to retreat at even the slightest sign of flame. Ash flew through the air like toxic snowflakes caught in the 50+ mph winds, signaling the impending approach of the uncontrolled wildfire. We finally turned up the driveway and parked in front of our house - shockingly still there. I had been sure it would already have been ablaze by that point, yet there it stood unharmed and resolute. Again, God whispered, "It’s going to be OK. I’m protecting you and the house." I believe You - otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Somehow - truly beyond any reason or rational understanding - I had peace with being there. In fact, I felt completely calm and composed. Indeed, that was the safest I had felt all morning and the safest I would feel for weeks to come. We went up to the deck and gaped in horror to see the houses just opposite our ridge completely engulfed in flame. I was finally able to process the sensory overload I had been shutting out till now. Those crackling pops in the distance had been explosions all along - gas lines, transformers, and propane tanks being overtaken by the raging onslaught as it raced over hills and homes alike. That rushing sound wasn’t the freeway or someone’s loud water heater; like the sound of a mighty wind surrounding us, it was every last branch and shingle splintering and being consumed in mere instants. Flames over 100’ tall rose from homes I had once walked past on cool misty mornings. Never again would that happen... I struggled to breathe in the sheer magnitude and meaning of what was taking place before my eyes. What was nothing more than a shout’s distance from my deck was all but cinders already, yet there we stood dumbfounded and sheltered. As I've since heard another say of a similar moment, I ‘breathed in the lives of my neighbors’ and there simply weren’t words. While it felt like a long time, we probably spent less than a minute watching this glowing cacophony of horror before we snapped into action. I was all business and no messing around. I knew I was safe in God’s hands, but that didn’t mean we could lollygag there all day either. Dad told me to go grab some specific things in the house while he went to pack some clothes for mom. Of course she hadn’t even grabbed clothes. I got his things and then grabbed sweaters for Elora and my own essential oils, throwing them in the empty back seat and continually returning to the deck to assess the situation. A delicate, shimmering band of gold crept its way down the hillside toward the dry creek bed I knew separated our two ridges. It was fire - as potent and destructive as any - but it was not approaching with nearly the same speed or veracity the first wave had. It took its time smoldering down the hillside and I kept a watchful eye on it. The funny thing about packing in a state of emergency became readily apparent to all of us: nothing was truly that important. It was all important, but not nearly as important as us getting out safely, which had already happened. Since packing was a rather difficult task and all the essentials we could immediately think of were taken care of, dad and I considered taking a stand and defending the house. Alas, the water had been shut off and not a drop could be sprayed from any of our hoses. So much for spraying down the house. I went about clearing the sukkah of its curtains and the deck chairs of their cushions. They would be the first and easiest to catch fire and I wanted to at least get them out of the way. I also suggested dad move our propane tanks, which he put in the car. No need to leave any accelerant behind. There was nothing else we could do for the house in our power, but I still felt totally at peace. God was in control and I had felt for a long time like something had been coming. Just a week earlier I had laid awake in my bed with the inexplicable need to think through what I should grab in case of a fire. Little did I know how soon I would need to put that plan into action. God would not give me peace to be here if it was not safe, and I trusted my gut feeling that the house would be fine. I took pictures of the still-shocking scene playing out across from us and felt led to sing a worship song. I pulled out my phone a cupped it to make the sound as audible as possible. “Though the storm it rages, I won’t be moved. I know You’re with me, I’m anchored in You. I can feel You, Jesus, all around...” There was nothing else to be said. I trusted Him utterly and completely - no matter what would happen - but I particularly trusted that He would guard our home against literally all odds even as they stared us in the face. It became harder to breathe and to sing (never mind my already being on the edge of tears) as the wind picked up more of the smoke towards us. Yet another miracle was the fact that I could stand there at all. I had been battling chronic bronchitis and a literally constant suffocating cough for over a month up to that point, yet from the instant we saw flames I had not choked once. The fumes were noxious and I had gone up the house fully expecting to be doubled over like an asthmatic, yet it was only in those later moments that I noticed any true trouble breathing at all. It was time to go. We prayed over the house loudly and boldly, and also prayed over the houses to either side of us. There was very little more to be said or done. The light changed as I got in the car. A uniquely yellow light shone through the smoke coming from a new direction - up the street. I shouted for dad to get in the car, but he just had to go check it out. For a moment as he wandered towards what I knew had to be flames, I lost sight of him. With painful and sudden clarity I could picture him being caught in the fire around the corner. Each second that passed by felt like a lifetime of waiting for him to reemerge. I wondered how long I should wait and at what point I might need to hop in the drivers seat to drive myself out. But while I was quickly losing peace with being there, I still clung to the belief that God would protect my dad. He finally came back and to my relief we pulled out of the driveway. He nearly stopped to get back out and walk closer to the flames, but I put my foot down as hard as I possibly could. We were leaving NOW and I wasn’t taking no for an answer. In hindsight, we must have just missed passing the fire engine on its way up the hill. I can’t imagine what they would have thought of two crazy people waiting till such a last second to finally leave... Anyways, we went back to Grammy’s and so began the most stressful day of my life. While I still knew God was taking care of our house, we had no idea what was going on or where we could go that would be safe. Hour after hour dragged on as we took turns pacing in circles and huddling around the radio. An internet report said there was fire just down the road from us and I was ready to plot our course through back roads out to the coast, but dad wanted to do some recon first. Waiting for him to return and still not knowing where either of my brothers were was just about as stressful as preparing to be evacuated from the West Bank during a terror threat had been. Eventually it got even worse. When my dad finally came back, he decided it was safe to stay put - whatever that meant. It was finally sunrise and we eagerly awaited the sound of emergency planes and helicopters taking flight, but the morning went by disturbingly silent from the skies. We nervously took shifts spraying the trees and the outside of the house. I found that I only had cell service by standing out in the middle of the street. There I tried to reply to the many worried texts asking about my safety and our house. I didn’t know what to say. ‘We’re fine for now I guess...’ ‘I feel like God will protect the house, but any sane person who’d seen what I’d seen would bet their last dime that it’ll be gone in under an hour...’ ‘We might have to evacuate again but honestly there’s no safe place to go anyways.’ ‘Please pray.’ What else is there to say? Life and time became a blur. Each hour passed by agonizingly slowly, yet suddenly it was getting dark and we were no safer or more secure than when we’d arrived 12 hours earlier. We ate every uneasy bite with our shoes and masks on, listening to the radio; not that it helped. The voices coming through over the static clearly knew barely any more than we did: a grand total of nothing. We got just a couple things out of the cars but remained ready to jump back in at a moments notice. Once the adrenaline vaguely faded, I realized just how exhausted I was. After all, I had only gotten maybe an hour or two of sleep before we evacuated and the day had been anything but restful. I tried to lie down and rest my eyes, but every time I tried to squeeze them shut I was met with images of houses ablaze and a renewed need to be ready to run. Mom finally gave us pills to help us rest and promised there would be someone awake listening to the radio at all times through the night. We would not be caught off guard again. As Elora and I laid down on our cots we pretended to sleep. The first in a very long series of restless, displaced nights. |
ErikaJeremiah 29:11 Archives
March 2023
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