20 years after the 1991 Firestorm

Someone asked me the other day, “Are you a fire survivor?”  Before I could answer yes, my mother interjected with “Well, she was seven at the time!”  I was immediately hurt.  It felt as if she was saying that a seven year old is less of a survivor.  Maybe she thought I didn’t remember that day or what happened in the months and years after, as if my seven year old mind was too young to comprehend such a catastrophe.  And maybe it’s partially accurate.  At seven, you are still naive enough to think that the world revolves around you and nothing could go wrong.  Though, many of us walk around with the same ‘It’ll never happen to me’ mentality.  Until it does.  That’s what the fire was for me; a startling wake-up call that something so tragic could happen not only to me, but to many others as well.  It fast-forwarded an emotional growth spurt to see outside myself.   Yet, at the same time I became hardened, even bitter about other’s lack of empathy.  In the years after the fire, as everything crept back to normalcy, people slowly forgot about it.  Other disasters happened around the world, even other fires.  It is then that I learned how cruel people can be when your issue isn’t the hot topic anymore.  I became resentful enough to say to my mother who went to help victims of 1993 Malibu fires, “Good. Now, they’ll know how it feels.”  My bitterness continued for a few years, and I used to speak of the fire with almost no emotion.  I wore it like a badge of honor, as if to say ‘Look what I’ve endured!’  After several years, when the pride from that scar didn’t seem to impress people as much, I just stopped talking about it altogether.  A good friend in high school was shocked to find out that my grandmother was one of the 25 victims, but by then I felt jaded.  I, too, had become busy with regular life, forgetting the trauma, ignoring other’s disasters.  I felt that way until a few years ago, when my family was slapped with another tragedy – my older sister killed herself.  This time, no longer a kid, there was no one to pick up the pieces and tell me what to do.  As an adult, it is quite threatening and lonely to suddenly feel so lost.  But, I did what my parents did after the fire; I looked at the shattered remnants of my life and started piecing them back together.  As hard as you try, you learn that it is impossible for it to be the same life.  But you get used to the new one and do the best you can, just like my parents did 20 years ago.  So, I can say that the most important thing the fire taught me was resiliency.  My mom later explained to me that she hadn’t meant my seven year old self was any less of a survivor, but more of one.