You start to realize the difference between a house and a home when you're watching it burn. We lived there for about seven years, and we were renting. It was a gray house with a white trim and was on Glen Avenue in Altadena. There were these two big windows in the living room, and together they showed this beautiful view of Altadena and Pasadena. When we walked out the front door — my wife, Allyson, and me and our three boys, ages 6, 9 and 13 — we could see the top of the Rose Bowl hills. My youngest son, who's neurodivergent, said his first word in the backyard during a speech therapy session: bubbles. Not Mom. Not Dad. Bubbles. My middle son developed a mean fastball, but most days, after playing catch in the backyard, he'd go back inside, throw on an apron and help his mother make dinner. My eldest learned to play the cello in the living room — a classically trained cellist who preferred playing the "Avengers" theme song over Bach. I would work from my home studio. I'm an audio engineer for The New York Times. I work across our entire show portfolio, but my primary assignments are the "Modern Love" podcast and developing new shows. In postproduction, that's when I come in full swing. The sound of many "Modern Love" episodes was refined on Glen Avenue, in a room with my electric piano, synthesizers, guitars and a Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" Lego set atop one of the monitors. On the night of Jan. 7, we were having burgers and French fries. We had sat down to dinner. We were learning more that the fire was spreading, and my middle child started getting really nervous. I think that learning what happened to the Reel Inn hit a bit too close to home for him. It was the restaurant we would always go to on Father's Day as a family. So when we learned the Reel Inn was destroyed, that was the moment when we realized this was serious. I don't think any of us had finished dinner when Allyson got an evacuation alert on her phone. The only thing I could think of at the time was to keep my kids calm and to get clothes for the next three days. We were fully intending to come back. As we were leaving, Allyson asked me if I wanted to bring a guitar. I told her there's no space — let's just go. She said, "Grab a guitar, I'll hold it in the front seat if I have to." I looked down and saw that one of my acoustic guitars was in its case right next to me. I picked it up and it managed to fit in the car. I had kept 33 musical instruments in the house. That guitar was the only one that made it out. We jumped in the car and took off. It was about 7:45 p.m. when we were on the 210 Freeway and I could see this snake of fire going up the mountain. We went back the next day to see if the house was still standing. Don't get me wrong: I know the decision to go up there was really stupid. I'm realizing that now. I just needed to know. So we mapped out side streets and we drove back. I had to drive slowly because there were power lines hanging down like vines in a jungle, and they were scraping across the roof of our Highlander. All the windows were up and I could feel the intense heat coming from these homes that were burning. The neighborhood looked like a World War II film, where a bomb had been dropped. We parked around the corner and then walked to the front. We could see the house completely on fire. The roof was still there, but it looked as if something had blown a hole through the top, so flames were coming out. We're standing in the street, holding each other in our arms, looking at the house, and Allyson is crying, just repeatedly saying, My home is on fire. My home is on fire. It was devastating. Everything that we had learned about ourselves, everything that we had experienced with family and friends, all of that was gone. I've dealt with depression for most of my life. Leading up to the fire, I was going through a pretty serious bout of it and was trying to find my way through. At a time when I wasn't sure how much I had mattered to the people around me, family and friends were there standing by my side, not just asking how they could help but helping. Donating instruments, donating money, donating clothes and toys for the kids. You can't dispute that evidence that you're loved, when people show up in this way. To us, all of our experiences on Glen Avenue — Thanksgivings and Christmases and Friendsgivings — it was all about the people, and it was all of these memories held in this one location. To us, it had become not a rental house but a home.
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Friday, February 7, 2025
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