The Dark Corners Part 4
Sifting Through the Ashes
*** This is the next in a collection of essays that I have felt compelled to write and/or finish for some time. Diving deep into some of the darker aspects of this journey - anger, guilt, self-pity, difficult aspects of Kara and my relationship, abject sadness, and then some.
I’m hoping to illuminate and examine all of those shady areas in the hopes that nothing malignant manifests within them at some point down the road. But also to paint a more complete and potentially relatable picture for others. Relationships and recoveries aren’t always pretty. And I think it’s unhealthy, potentially even dangerous to dwell exclusively on the more pleasing or comfortable aspects of both.
Some of these essays I started, or would revisit from time to time only to find that I wasn’t ready yet. While others I only recently wrote or began writing because I knew I would need to be in a good place to even attempt them. I can safely say that I’m in that happy and healthy place now. Still, these were difficult to write, and I suspect they might not be the easiest things to read either. ***
Part 4: Sifting Through the Ashes
July 2024
After the fire, a handful of attempts were made to gather any recoverable items. Sometimes by myself, sometimes with others. I believe the first attempt was made with some family and friends a day or two after. It was hazardous duty but there were reasons to expedite the process, namely to reduce exposure of anything salvageable to the elements. And, as it was detailed to me in brutally straightforward terms by locals and law enforcement, to prevent unwanted forfeiture of those items to human vultures. The thought of which managed to add a layer of nausea to my sadness.
I don’t remember much from those first few rounds of recovery other than being intent on finding absolutely anything that had to do with her. Particularly, intimate possessions like rings, clothing, or photo albums. Initially, I didn’t give a shit about any of my personal belongings, and I don’t think I visited the area of the house that held them until perhaps the third visit to the property. What I do recall and will unfortunately never forget, was the smell.
One of the things that initially let me know that this place was home, was the perfumed air that met me the moment I stepped out of the car upon my first visit. Moss, tree needles, leaves, damp earth, and crisp clean air. The immaculate aroma of forest decay intertwined with that of fresh growth and new life. An utterly perfect potpourri that inundated and enlivened senses beyond olfactory as it wafted through an emerald forest, beneath cerulean skies, and in accompaniment with the trailing song of a Swainson’s thrush. I was home.
That place was no more. On the contrary, I was greeted by a horrific melange of scents that made no sense, generated by things that in a perfect world would never burn, but did. Plastics, appliances, insulation, carpet, chemicals, linoleum, etc. Soaked by countless gallons of highly pressurized water, then left to smolder and rot. It was now emanating an unnatural, burdensome stench within a circle of semi-charred fir trees, under a sooted ceiling of clouds, amidst deafening silence. I was homeless.
After a week or so, Kara’s brother made the trek out. It was the first time he had ever visited the property and my heart began a slow and methodical re-breaking for him because of it. We would spend the better part of two days trying to recover whatever we could.
However, on day two my body finally began rejecting the fact that I was still there. After only an hour or so I started vomiting repeatedly. And feeling as though I could be on the verge of a potentially irreversible thousand-yard stare, chose to sit in my car away from the wreckage and breathe deeply until he was done.
A few days later, it was time to go through the somehow somewhat intact photo albums I had recovered from the area that had been Kara’s closet before they degraded any further. It was not an assignment her brother wished to sign up for, but not one I trusted to anyone else’s hands, either. So it fell to me. I was still without a bed of my own and living in my mother’s one-bedroom apartment at the time. So I chose to take on the task while she was gone for the afternoon running errands. In hindsight, an excellent idea.
Up until that moment, I felt like I had been doing a good job of embracing and dealing with my grief. It was very early on in the process, but I thought I was leaning into everything and putting it all on the table: no emotion left unfelt and no tear left undropped. I also felt like I was on relatively stable ground emotionally on that particular day, but I could not have been more wrong.
I slowly began the painstaking process of removing childhood photos of Kara from smoke-tainted, waterlogged photo albums. Over the course of the next three hours or so, I cried so hard that blood vessels in my eyes and cheeks ruptured. It was the worst I have ever felt, and it’s not even close. It turned out that all of the awful in my life up to that point, including the actual day of the fire, had been mitigated, delayed, or compartmentalized in some way or to some degree. And now, every one of those pipers was being simultaneously paid in full - as anything that I had ever pent up, swallowed, or stuck in a corner, was being addressed or released in an immediate, catastrophic, and complete emotional damn break.
Every nerve ending in my body was on fire or frayed - as if going through withdrawals all over again. Every emotion was turned up to 11 and on full display, and it was not quiet. I’m actually kind of surprised that authorities weren’t notified by neighbors.
I’ve never been suicidal, but in that moment, I wished from the deepest part of me that I would just spontaneously erase. And I felt like my entire being was so electrified by pain that if just one cell within my body were to falter, it was a legitimate possibility that the rest of them would follow suit and my hope would be realized.
The task was never fully completed but at some point, I was finished. I did not cease to exist entirely. But the fire, in its own way and despite my absence, had now claimed me as well. Like everything else in my life at that juncture, the person I was had been burned to the ground, leaving behind some bits, a few pieces, and a barely recognizable framework. Essentially everything that I am now, for better or worse, is part of a rebirth or an ongoing rebuild.
Ultimately, a majority of those photos were saved. As were a number of coveted possessions of great sentimental value for her family, friends, and myself. I’m exceedingly happy that those keepsakes were recovered and distributed in the ways that they were. As such, I sincerely feel that the journey to secure them was justified. Yet to this day, I find painful irony in the fact that anything recovered while sifting through the ashes, for me, serves solely as a reminder of everything that was lost.
The Dark Corners Part 1: It’s All Over