Six Months

A few thoughts where there are otherwise no words

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Six Months

Photo of my spectacular Nuccio’s Nurseries camellias set against one of our spectacular Altadena sunsets before the fire

Six months.

Six months since that night we stayed up all night messaging friends and neighbors, waiting for updates street by street, home by home—until the messages stopped, and our new reality set in. It was gone. Everything was gone.

Six months and the grief is still a constant. Different. Quieter. Deeper. More engrained. But constant. Ever present.

To outsiders, six months feels like time enough to move on. After all, we survived. We’re alive. We only lost “things.” And aren’t we already rebuilding?

Yes, we know how lucky we are to be here when not all of our neighbors made it out. But our losses are so much more than material. We lost more than homes. We lost our community, our memories, our histories, our security, our safe spaces—our tethers to place and to each other. In the months since, many have also lost their mental health, their physical health, their careers and livelihoods, their small businesses, their marriages. Some have lost their lives in the aftermath. The ongoing fallout is difficult to measure.

Those of us who haven’t left, who haven’t sold up and moved on, are still fighting our own fires. We are battling with insurance companies, mortgage lenders, county, state and federal agencies. We are stuck in the slow, cruel churn of bureaucracy while facing the reality of being left with a toxic uninsurable mess following a “record” response our local officials are busy padding themselves on the back over. A clean up so poorly done in comparison to past fire disasters even the crews working in Altadena don't feel good about the way they're leaving us. And all of this before we can even begin the brutal and expensive process of rebuilding, assuming we can even afford to rebuild—never mind the mountain of litigation. So much litigation. So many lawyers. The endless mountain of paperwork.

Some of us are also fighting to bring the right kind of money and attention to the community, so we can rebuild better—not just repeat the mistakes that got us into this mess in the first place. We’re pushing to finally incorporate in 2028, to break free from the very same County that failed us, and that is now writing (and passing without any vote or community input) legislation to give itself unchecked power and more of our tax dollars in the name of an emergency and climate disaster. Even the most well intentioned among us are still being misled by the same people and systems that betrayed us, while they are used as pawns in a chess game they don't even understand.

Meanwhile, the disaster economy churns on and everyone – everyone but us fire victims – are getting rich, most especially the nonprofits. All the while there's no shortage of people stepping up to help, self appointing themselves to "speak for victims" all the while helping themselves.

What comes next? No one really knows. But the road ahead is long and winding, and we still can't even begin to see the end.

What is clear is our fight has just begun. So today, we rest. We breathe. Because tomorrow we have to get back up and continue the fight.

If you’re one of us, give yourself grace—every single day.

If you aren’t a fire survivor but know one, give them some grace. They’re carrying more than you can imagine. It's heavy and what they lost cannot ever be replaced.

Sending you all so much love today. xx

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