It’s surprising how a place can forever link people together. How people can be so spiritually connected to a place on a map. Even now, over 2 decades since actually lived there, I will always see #Paradise as my home. Where I grew up. Where the backyard was perfect for Easter egg hunts with cousins and water gun fights instigated by my uncle and mom. Where I planted a tree for earth day in grade school and proudly returned to see it grow year after year. Where I blew out many birthday candles and made first communion and crashed a motor scooter. Where I had my first kiss, where I made best friends and was always surrounded by family. Where everywhere seemed like it was in walking distance. Where it smelled like fresh pine and sunshine all year around. Where we swam like fishes in the cold river under the honey run bridge. Where my grandpa planted and tended his tulips and gladiola (and cherry, plum, apple, and apricot trees, I’m probably missing one or two) that we enjoyed year after year.  Where I have always planned to return permanently ‘some day’. 




This place is gone now. A whole town just swallowed up by an ugly, unpredictable fire. Knowing the pain and loss my family is going through right now (as I am across the country sitting through work meetings and replying to emails) is unbearable. I am so powerless. 




My grandparents, my cousins and uncle all fled #campfire with just what they could think to grab at the time. Thankfully all lives are accounted for, including my 9 day (yes, day) old niece. But their life as it was lived through material things, is gone. I know (we all know) that life is the most important thing, all else is replaceable. But I think of how long my grandparents have lived, the places they’ve seen, things they’ve experienced and the memorabilia they have collected over that time and I just cry. I think of the special trinkets and photographs that were meant to be passed down through generations, long after my new niece would have her own great grand children, and I am heartbroken. 




To say that I am sad for everyone in the Paradise community, hardly describes it. They will be in our thoughts and prayers for a long time to come. 




My grandpa, our family’s patriarch and stalwart said ‘we got our lives, we’ll just have to start from scratch on our home’. It is going to be a long road ahead for my family and all of Paradise.  Please help them repair their homes and lives. Any amount helps.