WeiPoints #06: On facing destruction and loss
This is the island of La Palma in 2022. A year before I took this photo, there was no volcano or piles of ash. The area was a lush forest of trees. But the eruption transformed the greens into grey.
It’s hard to imagine losing your home. It’s just stuff, you may say. Of course, safety and lives are top priority. But the stuff in your home holds life’s memories—the people, experiences, places, and projects that built you. Sitting in my home office, more than 2,000 miles from the fires raging in LA, I can’t imagine how it would feel to be forced to leave this place without knowing whether I could ever return. My home is my safe haven, and I imagine it’s the same for many others. What happens when your safe haven is no longer safe, when the world crashes in and burns it to the ground?
While news of continued devastation in LA emerges, I keep thinking about one person’s surprising answer to this question.
The answer came from Bali Diaz Lorenzo, a resident of La Palma, an island in the Canary Archipelago, who I interviewed in 2022 for a National Geographic Magazine story about a volcanic eruption that devastated the region. That year, Lorenzo’s home and all her belongings were entombed in stone. Sadly, only a snippet of that interview made it into the final story, but I think our discussion deserved more attention.
A little background for those unfamiliar: On September 19, 2021, Lava burst through a crack on a ridge above one of La Palma’s densest population centers. The molten rock coursed downhill, swallowing more than 2,800 buildings and hundreds of acres of farmland. Many of those structures were homes.
Sitting among the buzz of a busy restaurant nine months after the disaster, Lorenzo described the realization that lava was headed straight for her home. She and her family were forced to leave with nothing but a few essentials. Lava isn’t always swift, though, sluggishly crawling rather than sprinting. Eventually, officials allowed Lorenzo and others to briefly enter the exclusion zone to gather some belongings from their homes. However, their time was limited. If my memory serves, they had just 15 minutes or so.
I asked Lorenzo what she took. She laughed and said she grabbed one of her daughter’s dresses (something her kid later chided her for doing). It was all she could bring herself to take. She looked at the rest of her home, her lifetime of accumulated belongings, and froze. She couldn’t select a single thing. Instead, she watered her avocado trees.
I remember being confused at this comment and asked again to make sure I heard correctly. Unlike fires, which can be deterred by wetting structures and vegetation, water wouldn’t halt a lava flow. But I hadn’t misheard. She’d nurtured those trees for years. She’d feasted on their fruit. She couldn’t stand the thought that they’d be thirsty, even if their days were numbered. So she watered the trees.
I think about the conversation often. While I was initially confused, I’ve come to realize that watering the trees was an intensely human reaction to an impossible situation. Unsure what to do, she did what she had always done. She tended to her garden. I think there’s a lesson in there somewhere about nurturing yourself through disaster, no matter how nonsensical those actions seem on the outside. You do what you need to do to survive.
My heart goes out to everyone in LA. If you want to help, there are many places to donate, and I’ve gathered a few below. These links are to places I’ve seen shared by some trusted people and organizations, but feel free to add others in the comments on this post on my website. I would just advise you to be wary of scams. Unfortunately, scammers tend to multiply when disasters strike.
Stay safe, LA <3
World Central Kitchen: This organization partners with people on the ground to provide food in the face of humanitarian crises. They’re feeding first responders as well as the families impacted by the fire.
California Community Foundation: This organization works with community-based organizations and government agencies to get resources to those who need it during disasters, prioritizing underserved communities.
Pasadena Humane Society: This organization is rescuing pets displaced by wildfires. They are also treating those who were burned or injured.
Center for Disaster Philanthropy: This organization awards grants to nonprofits and community groups to help with recovery from wildfires. They prioritize the medium- to long-term recovery efforts. For many, the wildfires are only the start of the disaster. The road to recovery is lengthy, and resources will be needed long after the final flames are quenched.
If this email was forwarded to you, sign up below to get irregularly timed doses of wonder about the world straight to your inbox.