Remembering Coffey Park one year after the fire

This is my 21-year (and counting) commemorative experience of living in the beautiful Sonoma County, California Wine Country and how I am processing what “rebuilding” looks like one year henceforth for a relatively unaffected witness to Santa Rosa’s traumatic events caused by the wildfires of October 2017.

I offer my deepest and sincerest condolences to those who lost loved ones in this fire and my whole-hearted sympathy to the many who are in the literal process of rebuilding their homes after “losing everything.”

Being two miles outside of the evacuation area brought forth profound feelings of anxious helplessness only slightly mitigated by Red Cross volunteer service in the days that followed. In the past year, I’ve had countless conversations that effectively trail off with me and the other person shaking our heads in utter shock and disbelief. Yes, traumatic events are a part of life and I’ve certainly overcome more than merely being troubled by witnessing that which has happened to others in my presence.

Just the thought of having to escape a deadly fire in Coffey Park twenty years prior when I lived there is abjectly terrifying. More to come….