Fire heals and nourishes. Fire lights and shows the way. And fire destroys.
Three years ago this month, I lost four beloved friends in an hellacious house fire.
It was my next door neighbors, friends for over 30 years. The sole survivor lived with us a month, having escaped with absolutely nothing. No clothes, no money, no ID. And no family.
The losses weigh heavily. It was my neighborhood’s 9/11. We rallied, we grieved. We sorted through the facts and our feelings. We shared memories and cried together.
It was months before I could so much as light a candle. And just last summer when I burned damp wood in the back yard, two neighbors came running because the smell so reminded them.
But light four candles I do, for these friends:
Sheri. My age. She took care of my babies while I worked, and was the kind of auntie every child needs, loving, firm, generous, always forgiving. And funny! That girl could turn a phrase and see the light side. She also harbored deep pain, and did her best to face it, but the going was tough.
Deidre. Sheri’s daughter. I wrote a letter to support Deidre’s adoption, so I felt like her auntie. In the long summer nights when Deidre and my boys were little, she and Sheri would come over and sit in my yard. The children would play, running back and forth between the two yards. Sheri and I chatted and watched the night fall and the kids wind down. As the kids got older, the families spent less time together, and most connections were yard-talks. But that special kind of neighbor love was there. In the coming years, Deidre had a hard path to walk. Gifted and troubled, she was starting to make her way.
Denise. Sheri’s sister, who lived with Sheri and the rest of the family. A gentle, quiet woman, she had moved in only recently. She was most known in our neighborhood for how often she rambled with the family dog, Sammy, and for her shy, sweet “hellos.” Every day she’d go up to the local deli for a chicken sandwich and tea. The day after the fire, the deli sent us a tray of sandwiches, with a note. Sammy also perished in the fire, a fact not often remembered but significant just the same. Poor little guy. I will add a candle for his happy little dog-soul.
Anthony. Deidre’s boyfriend. I never met him directly but I embrace him in my heart as much as all the others. Sheri had encouraged his and Deidre’s relationship and his presence in the household as a possible healing influence on Deidre. I love him for that, and because he was the age of my own sons, who knew him slightly and whom I love more than life itself.
Losses like these, thank goodness, don’t happen in most American lives. I actually took each of my young adult sons aside some days later to say that in my 60 years I’d never been through anything remotely like this and while I couldn’t promise, it was unlikely they would ever again go through something so horrifying.
But losses are as common and inevitable as breathing in, breathing out. I don’t like to indulge self-pity, but I do believe in the honesty of the facts, and the facts are these: You don’t get to be 63 years old without taking a few body blows.
The choice then is to rise again, or to lie there in the ashes. Sometimes I do have to stay down awhile. But never for long.
Humans are way more resilient than we think. People don’t fall apart. We reassemble ourselves. And we don’t do it alone.
There’s a new house next door now, brand, spanking new. A sweet, beautiful young couple lives there, with their little dog, Louie. Life goes on. Life wants to win. And love always wins.
We remember. We grieve. And we rejoice. Rest in peace, dear friends. You are alive and well in our hearts.
Many of my thoughts on love and life are in my new book The Hungry Ghost: How I Ditched 100 Pounds and Came Fully Alive which is about far more than food and weight.
