Ashes don’t hold the essence of life. This hard truth struck me in August 2023 while speaking with a mortician preparing to cremate my mother. As it turns out, the organic material in our bodies vaporizes under intense heat, leaving behind only the crushed, inorganic remnants we call ashes.
Those ashes that I might refer to as “Mom” are really just a pile of inert minerals, indistinguishable from any other person’s remains. If you place them in the soil, plants will grow around them, but not through them.
Yet, these ashes carry significance. They stand as a poignant, if insufficient, tangible reminder of my mother’s existence. They prompt reflection on life as it was with her and as it is now, without her presence.
This thought returned to me as I saw ashes covering the sidewalks, cars, and everything else left outside in the aftermath of the Eaton fire in Altadena. It swept through during a fierce windstorm last week. My family lives just a few miles from Altadena, and on the night of January 7, it felt as if we might need to flee as well. To the east, several homes fell to a spot fire likely sparked by embers blown over from Altadena.
A niece from Glendale, which, while farther from the fire’s origin was under even greater threat, sought refuge at our home. Family members, friends, and old schoolmates fled. Some lost their homes, and much more.
Their losses are real and stand apart from the unease felt by those of us who remain with intact homes and functioning schools for our children. Our distress stems from empathy; theirs from firsthand experience with relentless adversity.
Nevertheless, the collective trauma impacting Los Angeles, especially for those near Altadena and Pacific Palisades, is undeniable. The ash that fell for days was a mercifully mild reminder of the devastation just up the road.
Even weeks after, Altadena’s ashes linger in the cracks and crevices of sidewalks in our neighborhood. Otherwise, one might suspect a group of careless cigarette smokers had been around. Or maybe, in a “normal” mountain fire scenario, it could have been remnants of brush and trees from Angeles National Forest, like during the Bobcat fire in 2020.
But this time, this fire is something else entirely.
While driving the family van, I used the wipers to clear the windshield of dust and grime. I stopped to wonder if I had just carelessly swept away remnants of other families’ lives — perhaps these particles were once cherished family photos, framed diplomas, or even pages from hymn books in the church that burned down, where my wife’s colleague’s spouse serves as rector.
Whose home’s ashes are getting swept off neighbors’ driveways? Could remnants of the Altadena classroom where my wife and I once took our children for Mrs. Henry’s early parenting class be scattered among them? Or could some traces be from the house on Christmas Tree Lane, where, two years ago, model train builders delighted my kids?
Winds carried these ashes — artifacts of Altadena’s trauma — all around us. As with the ashes of a loved one, these might stir reflections on a pressing question: What now?
Back in the 1950s, my grandparents moved into a humble bungalow at the base of fire-prone hills and canyons in Glendale. The mountains they could see from their windows reminded them of their homeland, Norway. Is the security they once felt, that essential sense of life in Los Angeles, now lost? Have we pumped so much carbon into the air that what was once safely “far enough” from nature is now alarmingly “too close?”
Thankfully, ashes aren’t the substance of life. Despite the devastation, through GoFundMe campaigns and rebuilding promises, Altadena’s spirit endures. There are plans to re-illuminate Christmas Tree Lane’s cedars soon, symbolizing community resilience.
But I hope we never completely erase the memory of these ashes. Let them remind us, long after the immediate trauma fades, that those who lost so much in Altadena — those who form the true essence of that community — still need our support.
