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Family Hunt for Our Old House

I had been in contact via phone and text with my daughter and son from the beginning – she in northern California, my son in Belgium. They had heard about Altadena burning right away - Linda on the US news, Sam on a local Dutch radio station on his way home from dropping his son at school. Little known Altadena, our wonderful, small community was suddenly an international hot spot.

My daughter and her oldest son arrived Sunday evening from northern California. We hugged long and hard. We had all lost our community. Linda and Sam had grown up here. Some of their friends had lost their homes. Their middle school was half burned. And we were sure their childhood home from birth on had burned. Each of us spent time hunting for proof. Sam finally found a satellite map that we knew showed the ashes of our wonderful, unique home tucked into a small community at the top of Altadena, in the interface of town and wilderness. Somehow we didn’t want to believe it. And each of us separately wanted a photo as absolute proof. The search began. Sam even found a graduate student at a local university willing to hike up the paths and take a photo, but he was thwarted by local sheriffs and later the national guard. In some ways, that was reassuring since before the embers were even cool, the looters were trying to steal what was left of people’s lives. 

It was our grandson, Chris, who found the photo. Taken from the same angle as a real estate photo when I was selling the house a few years ago. There are pieces of it left, but not much except for an origami bird folded in metal by the entrance stairs in statuesque flight. We each said we sat there for a long, long time staring. It was the proof we wanted – the hard truth. We joined the thousands of other Altadenans grieving for our homes even though we didn’t live there anymore. Linda placed the photo of the home with the one of the burned skeleton on Facebook and the comments rolled in. “I loved that house.” “How many good times we spent there.” 

While Linda and Chris visited, we were able to drive across Altadena back and forth, back and forth letting the tragedy soak in. We knew we were just a few of thousands who were traumatized, and we hadn’t even been living in the house. But our community was gutted. Years of its development, its ups and downs, the histories of families who had been here for several generations. Held in memories, yes, but so much lost.

The spirit of Altadena is already beginning to rise, but it will be a long uphill struggle. 

*This submission is part of a four piece post. The other contributions are entitled:

Getting Mail, A Glimmer of Altadena Spirit Showing Through
The Pasadena Civic Center
Pasadena Village