The Phoenix

I saw a phoenix yesterday. You can tell me I’m seeing things, but I know what I saw. The bird rose from the ashes of our home. It was a phoenix, and it was crying.

In our first counseling session last week, we talked about the visions I’ve been having. We haven’t called them hallucinations, but I sense that is what you diagnosed me with. They aren’t hallucinations to me. They are visions of what could be or might be. I know there isn’t actually a hiker inviting me to join him when I’m eating breakfast or walking to my mailbox. He’s not really there, but he IS there. He is guiding me to a place I don’t know, and I’m not sure I even want to go. It’s spiritual, what I’m seeing, isn’t it? Isn’t that a type of “real?”

The hiker took me to the phoenix. He left before I saw the bird, but I know he led me there to see it crying on our little mound of rubble and debris.

Phoenixes, when they die, burn to ash and then are reborn out of the ash. Their tears are supposed to have healing properties. I’m also told they are made-up mythology. A case could be made that I saw a cardinal or something like that, but I just wouldn’t believe it. I know that phoenixes are myths. I also know I saw one.

You asked me to journal about the grief I’m experiencing, though, so I’ll focus on that in this “therapy journal” as best I can. Like I said, I didn’t feel much regarding the fire. I started feeling numb about everything when we were at my in-law’s house taking shelter. My wife had the video from the doorbell camera pulled up until we lost power. The camera showed us waves of ash and soot swooping past the porch from the wildfire. It came from the north and hit our backyard first, so we knew it was coming but we couldn’t see how fast it was coming or when it would actually hit. All that soot. All that ash. It looked so grey and apocalyptic.

My son was curled up in the corner of the room that night, texting his friends. I guess this was his way to cope. He didn’t want to talk about it and I don’t think he knew it was okay to cry. That might be my fault.

My wife kept refreshing the web pages on her tablet, getting whatever updates she could from her friends online. There were moments she realized that doing this would not change the outcome and that’s when she would weep. Her mom would hold her when she cried. It didn’t stop her tears from getting worse as the night went on.

By midnight, we knew that it was gone. Nobody said anything or hardly moved. Eventually, they all fell asleep, scattered across the house on makeshift beds of cushions and blankets. I sat in an oversized recliner, numb from the head down. I was trying to feel something, but whatever part of my heart that was responsible for my emotions got burned in the wildfire, too. All I felt inside me was the swirling of grey, lifeless ash and soot.

Look, I lost my home, but to be honest, I realized I had already lost it before the fire came. I didn’t think it was falling apart for the longest time. We had just all drifted apart, slowly. Then, suddenly, we imploded. My wife and I sleep apart. We say it’s because I snore, but we both know that’s not it. My son hardly speaks to me. Is that normal for a teenager to do? It feels like more than merely teenage angst.

The hiker showed up at my in-laws’ house that night. He put his pack next to me, sitting down on the floor close to the recliner. I didn’t actually see him, but I knew he was there.

I’m not sure how this journaling is helping in grief counseling, by the way. We already talked about me generally feeling numb, family issues, and seeing the hiker and all. None of this should be new or surprising to you, but the phoenix is new. That surprised me.

We got word earlier in the week that we would be permitted to visit our home. They were giving residents an hour to go in, assess the damage, and do whatever we needed to do. So we got included in the wave of residents that went out yesterday morning and we had this real short window to be there, show our ID’s, get cleared to go in, be escorted… it was a whole production.

The escort car led us into the neighborhood slowly and everything looked terrible. People were in their yards just kicking rocks and debris over, sobbing and holding each other. Some guys were on the phone with insurance agents, shouting out impossible requests as if an insurance agent could turn back time…

Then, we round the corner to our house. There’s nothing there. I mean, nothing. Dust. Ash. It’s gone. My wife chokes back a sob. My son clams up tighter, if that’s even possible. I pull into our driveway and park the car real workmanlike, just going through the motions to get us there.

My kid yelled at me. It was ugly. There wasn’t anything discernible in the rubble – save for our stone fireplace - but you could make out where stuff generally was. He went right over to where Hubble’s kennel would have been. Hubble’s the dog, by the way; he’s a pit/lab mix we got when my son was little. They were joined at the hip. Day of the evacuation, we go to load the car and I’m not sure how to get the dog in with us AND all our stuff but I was working on it. I’m frantically leading Hubble by the collar, carrying his stuff, and there’s lots of commotion. A siren races by, spooks the dog, and he bolts. I tried to take off after him but…

My kid was looking at the place the kennel would have been, just staring at it, and I said, “We’ll find him,” or something like that. He turns and screams at me. Beats my chest.

“He’s gone dad! He’s gone, and it’s all your fault!”

He spent the rest of the time in the car, alone… sobbing. I feel terrible. If I could find that stupid dog, I would. I’d climb a mountain to get him for my son. I wonder if it would be enough to tell him I do love him, and for him to care. Teenagers… I miss the kid who ran into my arms when I came home. Now he pummels my chest for losing his dog, and all I can think is that I’m grateful he even touched me. I’d take his punches to the chest over him being distant any day.

My wife was on the phone with her mother, walking her through the damages. She’s not paying attention to me. She has her own processing to do, and I don’t think I’m a part of it.

So I’m standing there by myself when the hiker comes up beside me. He nodded in the direction of our fireplace and we watched this bird limp its way into the ash. It was injured and mangy, its body grey and decrepit. The thing died right there, in front of my fireplace, and its body smoldered and sizzled into the ash.

A few seconds later, the pile of ash started moving. Out pops this grey lump, wriggling and writhing on the ground. A wing lifts up, then the other, and it shows me this striking orange and crimson display of feathers. The thing was almost a foot tall by the time it stood up, I swear. It preened and danced around a bit. I hollered to my wife to look, and she glanced over, gave me a passive nod like she saw it but didn’t notice it, so at least I know I’m not hallucinating.

Then the thing made eye contact with me. I started inching closer, maybe 10 or 15 feet away. That’s when I saw it cry, and the earth under its feet moved. Ash around it started shifting. The bird started moving its tail feathers in a swirling motion, dusting the ground to expose more of the home’s foundation. Turning around a few times, it plops down and nestles into a spot it has created and it dawns on me that it’s nesting. It got comfortable, looked right at me, shed a couple more tears that fell onto the concrete, then it took off. Its wings were huge and they made a crackling sound as it took flight.

I didn’t tell my wife or my kid about the phoenix or the hiker, of course.

This morning I went back to the house by myself. I told my family I needed to get out, clear my head. They didn’t say anything to me when I left. I honestly think I could have left the house unannounced and no one would have noticed. I just wanted to see that bird again and I was willing to sneak back into the neighborhood to find it.

There was the completed nest, on the foundation of my house, not made of sticks but of coal and rocks. No bird this time. Just me. Alone.

So I’m looking at the foundation of my house and this nest and I realize this is all that’s left. It really hits me what happened. I lost my home in the fire. All the reminders of happy memories in that place were gone. I’d give anything to feel the comfort of those reminders again. The markings on our door frame with my son’s height and ages - gone. The place my wife and I snuggled on the couch all night before he was born - disintegrated. The kitchen table where we used to sit and play board games, the chair I’d sit in to teach my son to read, the bedroom my wife and I shared when we were young and dumb and in love… gone.

Then I’m thinking this is all my fault. The dog. The fire. The distant wife and kid. All of it. I don’t know what I could have done differently, except maybe pay attention to the signs, but it all feels like my fault.

I was already on my knees sobbing like a fool but I eventually sunk onto the ground, on my back, and stared blankly at the sky. I wished I could have sunk into the earth for good and disappeared. Start over. Something. That’s when the bird soared over my head, a bright orange streak across the sky. I bolted up, trying to track it but I lost it. It was on a mission for something and I couldn’t keep up.

Suddenly, a sheriff yelled at me from the street. I guess he was patrolling the neighborhood for idiots like me who had snuck in before the area was fully cleared and he saw this whole scene. He asked me if I was okay and I told him I was. Then he told me to get out. I must of looked like an idiot, covered in ash from head to toe and eyes red with tears. Behind the sheriff, I spotted the hiker again. The hiker pulled up his pack, looked to the sky as if he was tracking the bird, and motioned for me to follow him. We needed to catch up with the phoenix, wherever it went.

I wipe the wet tears away from my face, smearing ash across my cheeks. I’m sure I looked like a sad child, but it felt good to cry. Here’s a discussion for our counseling session tomorrow: Why are tears a part of the healing process?

Anyways, I shook it off, pulled it together, and got in the car to go back to my in-laws’ house. I get there and my kid didn’t greet me, still medicating his sorrow by looking at his device all day. My wife questioned me for being covered in ash. I told her I slipped on the foundation at the house and fell into a pile of debris. She asked what I was doing there.

“Figuring out how to rebuild things,” I told her.

I kissed her. It was a long kiss and at first she kissed back like it was expected of her. Then, the longer I kissed her the more I felt her lips soften and her body relax. We hadn’t kissed that way in a long time. She smiled at me. It was the best feeling I had felt in… well, I don’t remember. I hadn’t felt anything for so long.

That brings us to now. I hope that’s what you’re looking for in this journal, doc. Don’t know if it makes me sound more crazy or less. Guess that’s for you to decide, right? See you at 2:00pm tomorrow.