Up In Smoke- Rowena Wild Fire Recovery

Aloha y’all. Most of you know the last couple of years have been rough for me what with losing my lucrative job at Roy’s to the 2023 Maui Fires, losing my partner Dale a week later to epilepsy, and having to move back to Oregon three months later to become my mother’s 24/7 dementia caretaker. But life keeps lifin’-and mine has decided to dole out another lesson in detachment and resilience.

Last Wednesday afternoon, June 11, I had about an hour to pack up everything I could and evacuate myself, my parents, and our dog from our family home of almost 30 years to a single hotel room in our small town of The Dalles, Oregon. The Rowena Wild Fire burned 3,600 acres- hot and fast, destroying everything we own that didn’t get thrown in the car. It’s been 5 days now and it’s still going.

While my parents have home owner’s insurance and will eventually be able to rebuild their home- the policy has a limit on contents and it’s not a lot to rebuild over eight decades of life.

My goal with this fundraiser is to gather resources to support myself and replace/rebuild MY life, without drawing on the resources they will eventually receive from insurance. It’s one thing to lose everything at 43 (44 on 6/24!), it’s another to have essentially lost your wife to vascular dementia and then lose all of your history and earthly possessions only to have to start over at 81 and support your adult daughter as well. My hope is to ease the burden and mitigate the stress to my parent’s recovery by not having to use their resources to fund my own.

So if you have it in your heart and your finances to help me out in this endeavor- it would mean the world to me. But please, don’t put yourselves out if it is not within your means to contribute- maybe just share our story and think good thoughts.