In the corner where the jewelry box sat, sifting with fingers
A dozen of us spent five hours sifting through the ashes of a friends’ home following the Valley Fire in Lake County, California.
Four weeks after the fire roared through the neighborhood and destroyed everything around it in minutes, we descended on an ash-filled house.
As explained here and here, our task was to clear a cement pad that used to house the garage, as well as hunt for some of the treasures in what was once a family home.
We found several small items intact in the former house.
It was unsettling to look at the cement foundation of a house filled with twisted metal and ash. It turns out ash looks different based on what burned.
In the corner where a bookcase stood, it’s flaky and pure white.
Where a wooden table once stood, the metal hinge survived and the wood became charcoal.
Stories come out, too.
“This was the hinge for the dropleaf table,” L said. “It came around Cape Horn in 1852 from New England when my husband’s family came to California. All that remains of that history is this hinge.”
We were sobered at the destroyed Baldwin baby grand piano. The soundboard and strings remained; it was too heavy for the men to lift.
Two people sat on the foundation in the bedroom corner and sifted carefully with a colander and sieve. They hoped to find remains of jewelry.
A family heirloom
The gold melted into lumps.
But then, there was a 1922 diamond ring.
L’s grandmother’s. Several of us were in tears with her.
R found a loose diamond!
Most amazing of all, R’s young eyes spied a loose diamond!
We found a ceramic coiled urn L made years ago. It had cracks and had to be handled carefully, but was only broken into three large pieces!
My son found the Christmas closet and turned up a snowman mug and Santa Claus to match.
“We never thought the carrot nose on this snowman would last!” L laughed, “and here it went through a fire!”
There will always be Christmas with these two mugs
I was captivated by the burned kitchen tools, the flattened front door.
We worked for quite a while before anything else was found.
But then, underneath what had been a ceramic Christmas creche, my son found the rest of the Christmas story: Mary, Joseph, camels, wise men. Ceramic and each one whole!
Baby Jesus, however, was missing.
Late in the day, the sharp eyed R spied him in the rubble. One leg missing, but recognizable!
L was plucky, upbeat and positive as we worked through the remains of her house. But often, an unusual finding would bring a sudden remembrance of what else was lost.
With baby Jesus in his place!
The piano was big and heavy; but then she turned to another corner, remembering her harp.
Gone.
I unearthed a ceramic doll head, which puzzled her until she recognized it as a marionette.
Again, she turned, as it to find all the others.
Gone.
More stories.
It was an honor to hear them, and mourn with her.
Sifting the ashes was not simply hunting and looking; it was sifting the memories, too, and remembering.
Tweetables
Sifting the ashes and the memories. Click to Tweet.
A diamond in the ash! Click to Tweet
Finding Baby Jesus and a creche: out of a fire’s ashes. Click to Tweet
This is what it looked like when we finished!
A lot of sadness and happiness in just a few hours. I could feel all the sadness but when you started to describe a find, my heart started to flutter. Thanks for sharing.
My heart hurts for this family and what they lost and yet…they found treasures thought gone. I’m sure those mean even more now. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have your mind remember something only to find it missing when you turn.
I saw L the other day and she said her husband was overwhelmed when he came home and saw the cleared garage pad and all the other work we’d accomplished.
“Now I know why I had to work on Saturday,” he said. “I would have told everyone just to dump the ashes in the trash bags and not bother to sift.”
To him, the nativity set is a miracle–Jesus’ broken leg and all!
Michelle, thank you for sharing along with the update here. It is so encouraging, hearing people working together and so glad that there was one more day of sifting and finding memories for L and her husband. And the garage pad is ready for the next phase of rebuilding.
Janice
That was the idea, to find the pad and rebuild. Praying the rains this winter are not so heavy as to bring down the ashy hillsides, though. Tough situation.