Ashes to Pink Ribbons
November 21, 2024. The smell of smoke had lifted. The sky was bright blue, not hazy, unearthly grey. There was less dirt, ashes, and charred debris. But my short walk from the front door to the end of the driveway had been forever changed.
The Mountain Fire impacted my usual sense of safety and well-being.
The house that used to sit at the end of my driveway is a charred, indescribable pile of rubble reminiscent of a crime scene I viewed years ago when working with Detective John St. John – the detective who solved the Elderly Women murders.
The killer raped and murdered this victim and then set her house on fire. The horror and tragedy of what happened to the elderly woman and what happened to the family left homeless with nothing but piles of wire, burnt bushes, and blackened wood piles hit me with the same sick, sad feeling.
Here I am again. Another burned-out house. Another life was upended. Another tragic loss.
I walked across the street and into our neighbor’s yard to get a closer look at the damage. A couple, probably in their late 60’s, came over to me and asked if my house was affected.
“My house is across the street,” I said. “We got lucky. The fire came within 300 yards.”
They looked at our mailbox across the street, then back at me, and whistled long and low.
“I’m still having a hard time seeing these ashes and those smashed pumpkins where their house used to be,” I said. “I can’t begin to imagine what they’re going through”
“I get it,” the woman said. “I’m hearing that same sentiment from friends I know who lost their homes. People had just minutes to get out. Grab the car keys! The dog! The cat! Run!”
I turned away from the charred pumpkins, charred Fall decorations, and the sign that read: UNSAFE. It felt good to talk about the disaster. It was almost as if it was normal to talk about fire, homelessness, and terror. It was almost like friends over coffee. Small talk, chit-chat, friendly. How are the kids?
But it wasn’t. We were shell-shocked neighbors grieving over a loss too horrendous to make sense of.
How could I absorb the meaning of what just happened to the safe, secure bubble of normalcy we humans build around ourselves from the Monsters out there? Homicidal maniacs. Fire. Floods. Tornados. Hurricanes. War. Revolution. Pandemics.
Our conversation went back and forth like friends at a neighborhood BBQ, ignoring the terrible backdrop behind us. I asked about the pink ribbons attached to houses.
“With the hell going on around them the fire crew’s priority was to get people evacuated,” the man said. “They went house to house, knocking on doors telling residents to get out and attaching pink ribbons to the empty houses. These men and women are our hero’s.”
After they left, I looked up and down the street marveling at row after row of pink ribbons fluttering in the breeze, sure my house had one. When I returned home, I held the ribbon attached to a stake in the ground in front of our house. I was never a fan of pink. Yellow was my color.
Now it’s pink.