Things to consider when you lose it all
At the Santa Monica pier celebrating my 30th birthday in Los Angeles with friends.
2025 has started in a way that I don't think many of us expected it to. It's been hard to get excited about the promises of the year when many people are experiencing losses.
The recent wildfires in the Greater Los Angeles area have devastated thousands. People have lost their homes, churches, businesses, schools, and treasured landmarks in the blink of an eye. Their beloved neighborhoods are reduced to ash, and their grief begins, as well as the anxiousness that comes with rebuilding and starting over again.
I watched the news, scrolled social media, and texted my friends who call Los Angeles home every day to find out if they were safe if they had to evacuate, and how they were feeling. One friend told me she spent New Year's Day at her cousin's house, and now that home is gone.
My heartbreaks for Los Angeles, I hope you plan to help or donate if you can.
I can't help but think about what this type of loss is and means. I know what it's like to lose someone you love, but is losing a home and a business a different experience?
Losing a life and losing your possessions are two different things, but what is similar is the loss of something foundational to your being. To have someone or something exist for longer or almost as long as you've been alive, to vanish like it never was is a mind [add explicits]. But the proper term is root shock. This term was created by Dr. Mindy Fullilove, a psychiatrist and author who wrote about the "traumatic stress response resulting from being separated from one's established community and familiar environment, often due to factors like gentrification, urban renewal, or natural disasters." Beyond natural disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes and fires, Black communities have endured the stress of root shock as historic Black neighborhoods have gentrified.
People lost homes that were in their families for generations, places that welcomed family members into the world and were the center of life's celebrations. Working hard for the "American Dream" is a value that many of us take seriously, and the fruit of that labor is displayed in our homes and our businesses. People sacrifice a lot of time and put up with disrespect just for a slice of that dream, and it's gone. Heirlooms, photos, funeral programs, and items from loved ones are no longer here. Churches, schools and restaurants that played a part in someone's growth and hold core memories, from first communions to first kisses, are gone. Like people, places leave their marks on us and are a part of the fabric of our being, so what happens when those things are gone?
You feel lost and uprooted. Your brain starts to try to retrieve and hold on to every memory of what was. It's devastating, and no one can tell you otherwise or try to simplify that loss.
One of my favorite brand consultants and writers, Amanda Miller Littlejohn, recently shared some questions we should ask ourselves and consider when devastation like this happens in our communities in her Substack. She calls it PURPOSESCAPING, meaning "no season is wasted—so what is this season here to teach?"
She asked herself the following questions that I asked myself that allowed me to explore my own grief, find empathy and consider what value different places and things have in my life:
Is the lesson to clarify the necessary and strip away the unnecessary?
Is it to reduce my reliance on physical treasures that anchor my memories?
Is it to decrease my attachment to the things of this world so I can survive without them?
What does it mean to lose the places that make you feel like yourself?
What does it mean to lose the places that hold the moments that made you who you are?
What does it mean to lose the places you thought would safely preserve your memories while you went about the business of living?
What does that do to a person? To a community?
What was interesting about the fires and thinking about loss in this way is that I realized that I lacked empathy when it happened in my community. I grew up in Tornado Valley, and every year, my town or a town nearby experiences this level of loss. It's a trauma that happens over and over again. It happens so much that I wasn't connecting with it like I should. But Clarksville means a lot to me, and it holds my most precious memories and my childhood home.
It's unrealistic to avoid attachment to the things we own and those places that mean a lot to us, but we can stop taking for granted the things we do have right now. Let's love, pour into and preserve the places and things that mean a lot to us.