If you are reading this, it’s because you have supported us, and for that we will always be grateful. I have meant to update earlier, and I have wanted to send each person a note in the actual mail. I hope you will take these good intentions as that’s all I’ve been able to muster. As a teacher in summer, I can finally rest, as can the students in the house though there’s summer school and UCLA film week and jobs. Khaled and I will sink into the summer, I hope, to rest and heal.

We are settled into our rental right by the racetrack, and it’s a neighborhood all of us love. Good, little free libraries every block, people who know each other and the history of the houses and who plant little vegetable gardens in the front yard. And due to a strange geometry I can’t fathom, I can walk in any direction and get to anywhere I need in minutes. There’s a cat colony and I may or may not have accidentally seduced a black cat into my care thinking she was one of its members and finding out it belonged to an-as-yet-unknown neighbor. Oops.

In front of the house is a big public pool that opens in a few days, and brass players practice together on the playground to the steady rhythm of one squeaky swing a kid is always in. We feel so incredibly lucky to have found such a spot, which we learned used to house a family whose house in Arabi was destroyed by a tornado. The family before that also lost their home in a fire. So it is a house of refuge.

We finally got permission to clear the land. It is such an important step. The ruins have been their own presence in our lives. Now they are gone, and an emptiness where we used to live our lives. It’s strange.

Khaled has had some back stuff show up that we realized might have come from carrying a 90-lb dog over his shoulder like a goat as he climbed an eight-foot fence. Likewise, Goji finally had the chance to play and tore his CCL (like our ACL I’m told), and the vet said he likely had a partial tear from his own journey being handed over that fence to Simsim and me and finally just tore it all the way. I have learned that PTSD is much more physical than I understood it to be.

Goji will have surgery June 2nd. We will convert the living room to pillows and lay around with him. There will be a cone for a while, and weeks of not moving, and as many doggie drugs as the vet allows. He does not seem to care right now that he is a three-legged dog; self-regulation is not an option. If you are local (even if you are not), feel free to come visit if you are up for lying around and/or a game of cribbage or something.

The surgery will be an expensive ordeal (though we know of course that Goji is invaluable). We are finally settled with insurance and trying to figure out what we do next, but not too quickly. The help you all have given (and continue to give) is helping navigate the extra things like the surgery and many new human health-related appointments we never anticipated, as well as the many gaps we have in our needs that insurance comes nowhere close to filling.

We want to have a big feast to feed and thank you at some point. For now, we are thinking of a gathering to plant the land with the seeds of flowers. Hang on to yours if you have them and please join us when that time comes.

Here are some pictures of regal Goji and under-the-weather Goji and the lot swept clean of our home.

Quick edit:

Folks have asked about the cause of the fire. It is still unknown. Meanwhile, I'll add a photo of King Goji, who deserves every possible treat, to the ones I've already posted.

I'm Brad Richard and I'm raising funds on behalf of my dear friends Andy Young and Khaled Hegazzi and their family. At 4:30 A.M. on February 5, 2026, the family dog, Goji, woke up Khaled. Thinking the dog just wanted to go out, Khaled got up and quickly realized that the house was on fire. He, Andy, their son, Simsim, and Goji escaped through the back door and into the streets. The fire was devastating: two fire department crews came, but the house was utterly destroyed, and neighboring properties also sustained damage. The family was incredibly fortunate to escape unscathed. The only item they had time to grab on their way out was Andy's phone, which they used to call 911. Everything else (except for Andy's writing studio in the backyard) is gone.

Andy is a poet and teacher, and Khaled is a writer and a businessman with a shop in the French Quarter. Simsim is a musician and a junior in high school; his sister, Tiba, is a student at LSU.

At this point, the family is just trying to regroup after this awful event. I'm setting this up so that they will not have to worry about having cash on hand while they fully assess their material losses and deal with their insurance company.

I know many of you who are reading this know and love this family as much as I do. Whatever help you can offer will mean the world to them right now, as will any messages you want to leave here.

On behalf of Andy, Khaled, Tiba, and Simsim--thank you. And on everyone's behalf: thank you, dear Goji, thank you so much.