31,536,000 Seconds with a Little Help From Our Friends

Dear House,

One year. 

31,536,000 seconds.

That doesn’t sound like the right amount of seconds, does it?  Feels like it should be billions of seconds.

There were hours that felt like years.

Like the hours of January 8th before I got the photographic evidence that you had burned.

Certainly, that was many millions of seconds, that day alone.

I still can’t believe I wasn’t with you when you burned. 

Were you alone or were all the houses joined together in some unseen way?

Were you like trees sharing crucial nutrients via secret root-like networks?  Were you talking to each other in a pitch that that was obscured by the howling winds.

I hope you didn’t feel alone that night.

***

My greatest solace is speaking to people who have also lost their houses.

Last night there was a memorial – the first anniversary of the fire starting.  The best hugs were from the people who also lost their houses.

Really those were perfect hugs that said all of this at once, overlapping, simultaneously, silently and loudly obscured by the winds of our still screaming grief:

I feel your pain.

I know your pain.

I can take a little of your pain in this hug.

I can give you a little of my pain in this hug.

And when we walk away we will somehow be even stronger,

knowing that our hearts are known.

Those hugs are the vital nutrients coming through the root system of fire survivors throughout our beautiful oak-filled town and beyond.

A fire survivor can hear when another survivor needs help to continue to thrive.

Like a tree signaling to its fellow trees that it needs nitrogen to grow new leaves.

A fire survivor can hear the weakening in a voice that might signal a lack of faith or hope.

Like a tree mentioning to its neighbors in the forest that it needs phosphorus for its roots.

A fire survivor can see when another survivor is low on resilience, and about to crack.

Like a tree signaling it needs potassium to survive in the face of all that nature throws at it.

Community events help. 

I imagined you were high above us last night looking down, encouraging us to have faith and reminding us that we are nurturing one another and we will survive, and we will rebuild, root by root, leaf by leaf, branch by branch.

I imagined you floating high above “A Concert for Altadena” that happened last night at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. That was a lot of love.

The last song. “I get by with a little help from my friends…”

I imagined you thinking of your friends when you heard that song.

Yes, even the standing houses around you.  Friends.

Even the friends whose lives did not burn.  Friends.

All friends know the muscles it takes to reach down, down, down to the very last tip of our roots to stay grounded and simultaneously stretch up, up, up to the highest bit of faith we can touch.

Thank God for the little -- and big -- help from our friends.

Love,

Your Forever Friend Who Can’t Wait To See You In Your New Form