Need a perspective and some love on how to hold your own or others grief from someone who has been through a wildfire and lost almost everything? Listen (or read) my new audio version (with RANT) of my most popular substack writing: Make Lemonade from the Ashes: But first squeeze the juice of your tears, rage, and despair
I was inspired to record this article, which includes a RANT after reading Luvvie Ajayi Jone's recent post about people’s responses to the Los Angeles fires.
What Luvvie wrote:
We need to have a word about these responses to the LA fires because the way folks are handling this is beyond disappointing.
To everyone who keeps saying "it's just stuff" or "material things can be replaced," I need you to stop that RIGHT NOW. The audacity to tell people who just lost EVERYTHING but the shirts on their backs to "look on the bright side!" Nope. We're not doing that. What’s the bright side?
Then there's the folks talmbout "Well they're rich so..." UMMM WRONG . Everyone who lives in LA isn’t rich. Altadena, which was decimated, was a neighborhood built by generations of Black and Brown people. And also… rich people ain't people? I need us to get a fcking grip and not be so terrible at humaning. Last I checked, trauma don't check your bank account before it hits. A home is a HOME. Whether it cost $100K or $10M. It's where memories live. Where safety was supposed to be guaranteed. Where people built their lives.
Homes hold the first steps of our babies. The height marks on the wall showing how tall our kids grew. The kitchen where grandma taught us her secret recipe. The living room where we celebrated every milestone. That photo album we inherited when our parents passed. The artwork our kids made in kindergarten. The things money literally cannot replace.
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