Ill Wind

Getting out of the car, the unexpected gust of hot air made me gasp. The force nearly knocked me down even without the aid of the car door slamming against me. Most disconcerting, though, was how it came from the wrong direction.

Wind usually blew in from the west off the ocean, cool and refreshing. But this wind was hot and dry, screaming down from the eastern hills. A glimpse across the valley revealed the sky as an unnaturally pale blue. So pale, it appeared almost white save for the haze of faint brownish-orange lingering at the horizon, which faded gradually as it rose to meet the sun. Leaves, bits of garbage, and debris long tucked away in cracks and crevices circled the parking lot along with a sense of foreboding.

Shrugging off the ominous feeling as nothing more than superstition I went about my business, taken aback every time I stepped out of the car to complete another errand. This was the strangest weather I’d experienced in my five years living in Fairfield. Located about halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento, we sat at the precise location where the Delta Breeze rushed through the pass where Interstate 80 ran. That breeze would break week-long streaks of triple-digit heatwaves, giving relief to the people in the Sacramento Valley. The extreme flip in the wind’s very nature kept me ill at ease.

Arriving home, my husband, JJ, hurried out to help unload the groceries. He, too, stopped when hit with the odd wind. A conversation regarding the bizarre weather passed the time as we emptied the car and put the groceries away. It continued as he started the BBQ to grill burgers for lunch.

The unease grew, consuming our discussion as the wind increased past noon. We were on edge; both convinced that something was wrong, though we couldn’t say precisely what.

The answer came when we turned on the TV. Breaking news blared over every station that the Oakland hills were ablaze in an out-of-control fire, destroying everything in its path.

John and Yvonne came to mind; my father’s cousins who lived at the crest of the hills by Piedmont, about three miles south of the stunning Claremont Hotel. I’d spent countless hours at their home as a teenager. Their daughter, -my cousin Julie, and I were close back then. I'd often spent a weekend with Julie at her place, or she would come to my parent’s home in Concord, a twenty-minute drive traveling through the Caldecott Tunnel and Diablo Valley.

These days, John was wheelchair-bound since suffering a stroke a few years earlier. It was Saturday; Roberto, their live-in home healthcare provider’s day off. How on earth could Yvonne manage to get John evacuated on her own? The entire area was chaos, who could she call for help?

I contacted my parents to see if they’d heard anything. They hadn’t, and also worried about our cousins. Glued to the television, JJ and I waited for each update on the fire line, how far and where it had expanded. Though not there yet, the raging inferno marched steadily toward John and Yvonne’s house. If the flames hadn’t yet reached them, the thick smoke must have been making it hard to breathe.

I worried about Julie as well, who was currently traveling overseas. Was she even aware of what was happening; had the news reached her? Her older siblings, Denise and Steve must be anxious, too. Neither lived locally anymore; they had to be going out of their minds!

As the hours passed, memories that spanned decades traipsed through my mind on an endless stream. Julie and I would play with our Barbie dolls for hours on the staircase, or swoon over the Beatles as we gathered info for the “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Beatles” book we planned to write as a brilliant vehicle to meet them. Then there were the nights spent talking about boyfriends, college, hopes, and dreams to a soundtrack of Cat Stevens or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

John and Yvonne belonged to the Hiller Highlands Country Club. Julie and I would often hang out there to swim, hit the sauna, play a game of pool or tennis, or even a round of golf. Just being there was a treat for me. On a clear day, you could see the Farallon Islands thirty miles outside the Golden Gate.

Montclair, the little village a ten-minute walk down the hill from their house, was like something out of a fairy tale to me. Julie and I crossed the pedestrian bridge suspended across Highway 24 too many times to count. We’d hang out at the park, play on the playground, wander the shops, or run errands for Yvonne. A magical place, I always felt like its unique architecture and ambiance belonged in Europe, not California. With a sentimental chuckle, I remembered the time Julie and I donned pathetic English accents as we wandered the shops pretending to be tourists from London.

I recalled too, John and Yvonne’s incredible view. It stretched from Palo Alto to San Rafael, a panorama of the San Francisco Bay that showed off hundreds of colorful sailboats and landmarks including the Golden Gate. The sunsets were to die for, and we witnessed an extravagant display that glimmered with breathtaking, shimmering lights at night. Every time I walked by their dining room window –the best vantage point, I stopped to take it in. It was unthinkable not to.

In all honesty, I never thought about John and Yvonne that much other than they were close to my parents. I interacted with Julie when around them. Now, though, I couldn’t stop thinking of John’s silly jokes, the nerdy set of three lenses always attached to his glasses that would fold down for a better view of whatever he might be working on; and his absurd bartending practice of serving each drink filled beyond capacity, creating a dome of liquid atop each glass. His trek to deliver the libations crowded on a serving tray took a half-hour from kitchen to living room in his effort to prevent spills. Unsuccessful every time, he never failed to slurp up the accumulation of spillage from the tray, causing everyone to shake their heads and roll their eyes.

Intertwined with his peculiarities, though, were the fond memories of him reclining his robust girth on the floor while leaning on one arm to play a game of Monopoly with us kids. Alongside the nostalgia, a recent recollection came to mind as he watched my twins play with Julie’s kids from his wheelchair, unable to join the fun on the floor. The look on his face held a bittersweet mixture of joy and longing. He could no longer even share one of his goofy jokes since having his stroke, the words now only coming out as indistinguishable grunts and moans.

Then there was Yvonne. She had an annoying habit of practicing the contrasting traits of superiority and thrift, wielding each as though a superpower. Born to French immigrants, she didn’t learn to speak English until she'd started kindergarten. The woman was an unbelievable seamstress, able to copy any fashion masterpiece with a little fabric, thread, and a sewing machine. She made the world’s most enviable wardrobe for not only Julie’s collection of Barbie dolls but for Julie, as well. The woman boasted constantly about the designer outfits she habitually wore that she’d either picked up at Goodwill for less than ten dollars or sewn for less than three. A gifted cook, she’d been taught by her mother, Mimi. Thoroughly educated and seeped in French cuisine, Yvonne was famous for discovering wonderful dishes of all kinds and serving amazing meals. I was, however, always leery of whatever strange and disgusting animal parts might be among the ingredients before I finally learned not to ask.

Though John was Dad’s cousin, Yvonne and Mom were like sisters. Their relationship consisted equally of genuine love and utter annoyance. How many times had Mom whined about the latest recipe Yvonne shared, only to discover after making it that she’d ‘accidentally’ left one or more ingredients off the recipe card written in meticulous penmanship? Despite Yvonne’s curious and irritating foibles, she was still the person I chose as my sponsor when confirmed in the Catholic church at age twelve, as well as the person I most wanted to impress at twenty-five when performing ‘Beau Soir,’ an opera aria in French, -her native tongue.

They were family.

As the fire burned hour after hour, I knew there was no way tiny seventy-something-year-old Yvonne could wrangle large, helpless John into a car to make their escape. Each passing hour brought only more heartache and pain as I couldn’t stop imagining their terrifying final moments.

When reports started coming in heralding the beginnings of containment, the fire was around three-quarters of a mile from John and Yvonne’s house. The news did bring hope, but that hope was steeped in the likelihood that it was simply too little, too late. As the grueling winds died down, firefighters started to win small victories one by one, until the word ‘containment’ morphed into ‘extinguished.’ Real estate consumed by the ferocious flames now lay as piles of gray, smoking ash. The worst was over, but the horrific task of surveying the loss of property and worse, -the body count, had only just begun.

We’d heard nothing -not from Yvonne, nor her kids. They’d received no news either; just the eerie, continuing silence that did not bode well. Of course, phone service was down throughout the East Bay, but I considered that knowledge wishful thinking when confronted with the brutal reality of the destruction’s magnitude. Silence broadcast the news the authorities simply hadn’t gotten to yet.

The numbers reported brought cold hard facts, and the sobering gravity of the information increased with each update. The maps shown on the news of the affected area were just estimates; we had no idea if the fire had consumed their house. We wouldn’t have precise information for days, but it didn’t look good. Hope dwindled and flickered out as I forced myself to face facts; John and Yvonne were gone. My favorite childhood hangout might remain, but if it still stood, it was tarnished –never to be the same. The dark cloud would linger over that place like the smoke that destroyed the community it occupied. And it would never clear away.

Never.

As I look back now over thirty years later, the horror and fear of those awful days still send a chill down my spine. I’m brought to tears every time I tell the story, crushed by the loss of life, while amazed by the knowledge of how much worse it could have been, and the miracles that emerged from the ashes.

Like John and Yvonne’s survival.

When we finally got word, we learned that Roberto, John and Yvonne’s home healthcare worker indeed had the day off, but he’d made no plans. He hadn’t gone off for a day of rest with his family like he usually did but stayed at the house. Both he and Yvonne were able to get themselves and John to safety. Once in the car, they fled south to an emergency shelter. Unable to contact anyone, they watched on TV along with everyone else, the fire burning toward their home of forty years with little hope they’d ever see it again.

When all was said and done, the house stood unscathed. The massive and utter destruction had been stopped in time only a quarter mile away, leaving a landscape of devastation in its wake. Everything from apartment complexes to multi-million dollar homes and palatial estates were no more, ash and chimneys occupying the topography in their stead. Fire proved itself impartial to wealth.

In the years following the fire, my family and I were able to enjoy many more good times at John and Yvonne’s. Blessed to take in that spectacular view from their dining room window, and mesmerized as always, I had to be called away to join the conversation as so many times before. I again, observed as John watched the children play, though now he beamed and wore a contented smile as he did. Yvonne prepared more amazing, incredible meals, and a large family reunion was hosted there with relatives coming from as far as Minnesota to join.

They passed a few years later due to natural causes as they should, peacefully in their sleep as opposed to the pain and terror of a fire.

Though the inferno raged over three decades ago, its effects still linger today. Everyone in the San Francisco Bay Area was affected, each in a different way. For me, it was a wake-up call to appreciate the many blessings I have.

I knew many of my cousin’s neighbors; I’d eaten at their homes, played with their kids, and worshiped at their church. Some hadn’t fared as well as John and Yvonne, losing everything in the firestorm. What amazed me was that every one of them picked themselves up from wherever the catastrophe left them. They mourned and grieved, but then they carried on refusing to stay victims, rebuilding their homes as well as their lives.

In total, twenty-five people died, while a hundred and fifty more were injured. Three-thousand, two hundred and eighty homes were destroyed -the owners and renters left in emergency shelters, hotels, or staying with friends or family until they found a place to start over. All but the few personal possessions they were able to run away with -if any, were forever lost.

The Oakland Hills fire taught me that none of us can know when tragedy will strike, whether on a small scale affecting only one’s self or on a cataclysmic scale affecting hundreds or even thousands of people. In either case, it leaves an indelible mark and irreplaceable divot deep in our soul. It is in those moments when sentimentality morphs from being a silly waste of time to a defining revelation of the people and events that helped mold us into who we are.

Most of us go through life hoping tragedy doesn’t touch us, and even though it can sometimes seem as though it avoids some while haunting others, that’s a fallacy. Ill winds blow, and tragedy strikes with equal opportunity. It’s not a matter of if you’ll be affected by it, but when. The question lies in our response.