Ashes are not living things.

In August 2023, I learned the news from a funeral director who was preparing to cremate my mother. I was told that the organic matter in the human body evaporates when it is hot enough, leaving behind the pulverized inorganic material we call ash.

So what I call "mom" is actually a pile of inert minerals, indistinguishable from the remains of anyone else. Put this stuff in the ground and plants will grow around it but not through it.

Yet these ashes still have some meaning. They were the final, heartbreaking, inadequate, tangible evidence of my mother’s existence. They are relics that help me reflect on my life before and after her death.

I thought about this as last week's Eaton Fire in Altadena destroyed trees, homes and property with ash covering sidewalks, cars and anything else left outside during last week's apocalyptic storm. My family lives a few miles downwind from Altadena, and on the night of January 7th, it seemed that conditions were so extreme that we might need to leave, too. To our east, Several houses were burned down The live fire is believed to have been ignited by embers blown out of Altadena.

A niece in Glendale, further away from the origin of the Eaton fire but more threatened than us, was evacuated to our home. Family, friends, old high school classmates—many people fled. Some people lost their homes and more.

Their loss is real and incomparable to the pain felt by those of us who still have a roof over our heads and schools for our children to attend. Our pain, if you can call it that, comes from empathy; theirs, from the experience of ruthless bullies.

Yet the collective trauma endured by Los Angeles, especially communities near Altadena and Pacific Palisades, is undeniable. The ash that has fallen on us for days is just a physical reminder, and a benevolent one at that, of the devastation we are experiencing just down the road.

Nearly two weeks later, Altadena's ashes were left in sidewalk cracks and other difficult-to-clean areas near my home. Any other time you would think a group of smokers didn't clean up. Or, if this is a more "typical" fire deep in the mountains, it could be the remains of brush and trees blown in from the Angeles National Forest. that happened During the 2020 Bobcat Fire.

This time, judging by the fire, things are different.

I drove the family minivan, running the windshield wipers away from dust and grime, and wondering what other traces of family life I had just inadvertently wiped away. Maybe the spots were once family photos, a diploma hanging on the wall, maybe even pages from a hymnbook in a burned-out church where the spouse of one of my wife’s co-workers was the rector.

Which homes do neighbors sweep their driveways to scatter their ashes? Are there any remains from the Altadena classroom where my wife and I took our children to attend Mrs. Henry's early parenting classes? The model train builders who graciously entertained my children at the house on Christmas Tree Lane two years ago?

The wind blew these ash, the remnants of Altadena's trauma, around us. As we may grieve over the remains of a deceased loved one, these may prompt us to consider the question: What now?

In the 1950s, my grandparents settled in a modest bungalow on the lower slopes of Glendale’s fire-prone hills and canyons. Living surrounded by mountains reminds them of their home in Norway. It was the sense of security that once allowed them to bargain with nature - so to speak. Typical quality of life in Los Angeles ——Leaving now? Are we pumping so much carbon into the atmosphere that places that were once “far enough” from nature are now “too close”?

Thankfully, these ashes are not the stuff of life. Judging by the GoFundMe page and pledges to rebuild, Altadena's heart is still there. Plans are underway to relight the cedars on Christmas Tree Lane as soon as possible to show the community’s resilience.

But I hope we never completely erase the memory of these ashes. It can serve as a reminder that the people who lost so many in Altadena—the very fabric of life in that community—still need our help long after the broader collective trauma has subsided.