What We Hold Onto When Everything Else Burns
by Beth Dolinar, contributing writer
In the small safe deposit box at the bottom of the coat closet are a few things I’d miss if ever I were to lose them. There’s a tiny, wind-up plastic dog my son carried around in his chubby hand when he, too, was tiny; there are some birth certificates, a few favorite photos, and a handwritten postcard from Mister Rogers, received in response to a letter I’d written him.
If my house were to catch on fire or be threatened by weather, I’d grab that box. Depending on how much time I had, I’d gather a few other things: maybe my children’s framed self portraits that hang on the wall, my laptop computer, as many sweaters and jeans as I can stuff into a bag, some shoes and boots. A pillow or two. A jar of peanut butter and some rice cakes. My asthma inhaler. A phone charger. A bottle of Advil. My bike, if I could get the rack on my car quickly enough. An armload of books and a few pairs of reader glasses. My guitar.
How reductive this is to consider, the culling of those things most essential to a day in the life. That short list of items is in no way wholly indicative of the how I live in this home of mine, at this time, with my needs and interests, but it’s what occurs to me now as I’m writing this. On another day, or faced with real peril, I might come up with a list that differs from this tidy one inspired by a blissfully hypothetical question.
I’ve been thinking about the thousands of people in California who faced that question in real and horrifyingly quick time. As the wildfires tore through neighborhoods, families were faced with impossible choices. What parts of this home, this life of theirs, can be found, gathered and spirited away to safety before it, and they, are killed?
We’ve seen the images of the devastation. We’ve heard about which celebrities have lost their mansions, but my eye has rested more distressingly on photos of the modest homes of those who, literally, have lost everything. The networks interview families who are sitting in lawn chairs in the front yards of destroyed homes; they are grateful to be alive, and happy to be holding their beloved pets—sometimes the only things they carried in their arms as they fled.
Now, there’s talk of rebuilding, which brings to mind insurance adjusters and contractors and roofers. But what of the smaller things, the details and cherished belongings that were smashed to ashes as the chimney crumbled? How do they ever restore that part of their home?
It’s often said that a home is not the walls or the windows or the rooms, but the life inside it. When reduced to its elements, that life is all the small items collected and treasured, the things that are meaningful in ways only the family inside can know.
When the California families speak of what the fires have taken, we may think of ceilings and walls and the rubble of fallen chimneys, but I’m certain they will someday pine for all the other, smaller things—the artifacts of their life within those walls: the favorite baby photos and the little wind-up toys. Yes there’s a story attached to each, and those memories survive.
But still, what a loss.
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About the author: Beth Dolinar is a writer, Emmy-award winning producer, and public speaker. She writes a popular column for the Washington “Observer-Reporter.” She is a contributing producer of documentary length programming for WQED-TV on a wide range of topics. Beth has a son and a daughter. She is an avid yoga devotee, cyclist and reader. Beth says she types like lightning but reads slowly — because she likes a really good sentence.
