Los Angeles Fires & Emails with Friends in Ukraine – “When I Looked at the Photos of the Burned Houses in Your City, it Reminded Me … of Those Places and Cities in Ukraine that Were Destroyed After Enemy Shelling” – “Пожежі в Лос-Анджелесі та листування з друзями в Україні – “Коли я подивилася на фотографії спалених будинків у вашому місті, мені це нагадало… тих місць і міст України, які були зруйновані після ворожих обстрілів”

Jan 18, 2025 | Family Non-Fiction, Ukraine — Friends, the War, & Hope

Los Angeles Fires & Emails with Friends in Ukraine – “When I Looked at the Photos of the Burned Houses in Your City, it Reminded Me … of Those Places and Cities in Ukraine that Were Destroyed After Enemy Shelling” – “Пожежі в Лос-Анджелесі та листування з друзями в Україні – “Коли я подивилася на фотографії спалених будинків у вашому місті, мені це нагадало… тих місць і міст України, які були зруйновані після ворожих обстрілів”

On October 8, 2024, I received a message and photos from Alena, my close friend Maxim’s wife, on celebrating an American style Thanksgiving dinner in their apartment in Kyiv, and because of the war damage to the electric power system in Ukraine, working their dinner and celebration around the schedule when the electricity was on and when it was off.

Later, on October 8, I sent her an email thanking her for her words and photos. And then much later on October 8, Alena wrote a thank you message to me, ending with, “We are very pleased to have such friends abroad!!!

On December 12, I posted a blog on this email exchange, and in the postscript, I wrote of my thoughts on their Thanksgiving dinner and on the persons in the photos.  I wrote a lengthy paragraph on Alexei, their son.

On December 13, the day after my post, Russia fired a total of 93 cruise and ballistic missiles and almost 200 drones against Ukraine’s energy sector, one of the biggest attacks of the war, and on December 14, I received a message from Maxim thanking me for the words of my post, saying how Alexei was very appreciative of my concern for him, and also wishing us a Merry Christmas.

On December 15, I responded to Maxim’s message, explaining more the reasons for my focus on Alexei’s situation.  I also added Christmas greetings. “Now, Merry Christmas to you all also!  I have included a photo of the fireplace where you, Maxim, sometimes sat when you visited, now decorated for Christmas. During the winter, when we have a fire in the fireplace, I think of you and Igor and the others that have come under our roof in years past.” (In the Postscript at the end of this post, I speak more about the photo and how it came to greatly color the emotional tone of this post.)  And on December 19, I posted a blog with the emails between Maxim and me, and the photo of our fireplace as the featured photo.

January 2025 arrived and on Tuesday, January 7, fires broke out in several locations in Los Angeles and quickly spread in the hurricane strength winds blasting the city, rapidly engulfing multiple homes and neighborhoods. People, whole families, had to quickly escape and later it was discovered that many did not escape but died in the fire and flames. On January 9, I received an email from Maxim asking how we were doing, and that is where this posting begins. Below are the emails.

On Thursday, January 9, 2025, I received an email from my friend, Maxime, in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Hello Chris!
We were very sad to hear about the fires in LA. We are praying for your safety and the safety of your home. Please write to us to let us know how you are doing.

Best regards! Maxim

When I received Maxim’s message, I realized that news of the raging multiple fires in Los Angeles over the past three days, must have reached Maxim via the internet or through independent Ukrainian news sources, and I was touched that even with the increased Russian missile and drone strikes against civilian and energy targets in Ukraine, Maxim and his family were concerned about me, and my family, and our home, into which we had welcomed him and other Ukrainian friends for many years. I also realized that coming in February, the war approached the end of the third year of Russian aggression and destruction upon Ukraine – not three days, but three years! Later, on January 9, I wrote back to him. Below is my message in part.

Thank you for your message of concern.  We are safe and the fires have not come down into our neighborhood. The massive fires for the most part have been in the hills and since we have had hardly any rain, everything in the hills is very dry and when the horrific winds have come, wherever there was a spark of any kind, the wind just carried the flames way ahead of the firemen and people had just very little time to get out.  For the city it has been a very traumatic and distressing time. …

 And I have been very concerned about all of you because of the increased missile and drone attacks upon Ukraine.  I have also been encouraged because of some of the attacks Ukraine has managed to stage against the Russian military and war industrial complexes. …

Please send me more stories and photos.  Have you read some of the comments on the Ukrainian posts?  They have been very supportive especially in terms of prayer for Ukraine.  …

We were in the New York area for Christmas with my New York daughter and family and my daughter and family from Sacramento also came out to join us in New York.  That was a real nice time.  I’ll send you some emails with photos.  Also, it snowed on Christmas Eve and that was the first time in my life that I have seen snow fall around Christmas. …

So good to hear from you.  Please greet your family and all those I know in Ukraine.

On Sunday evening, January 12, I decided to send a message to Maxim and Igor because I knew that Igor and his wife were also praying for us. My message to them is below.

Thank you for your concern and prayers for us during the fires here in Los Angeles.  The fires and flames have not touched us, the winds have died down for the weekend, but they are forecasted to pick up stronger again tomorrow and on Tuesday. 

On Friday, there was one little fire in the hills above us, but it was quickly put out.  Even if flames came down the hill, I don’t think they would/could come all the way down to our house, but because all three of my daughters are worried about us and have urged us to be ready to evacuate if we need to, I have put together some clothes and some of my little treasure that I have written about and some of my treasured books, like the complete book of Shakespeare that my parents gave me as a birthday book when I was in college, so that I can quickly load them into the car if we have to leave. I also retrieved the animal carrier out of the garage so we can just grab Molly our cat and put her in there and then into the car.  However, I don’t think the fires would ever get to our house, but many things I thought would never happen have already happened with these fires, so I wanted to be wise and cautious and prepare to take some things at least with us. 

Below is a link to a New York Times article that provides much information on the fires.

L.A. wildfires update: More people reported missing as strong winds fuel fires

Later that evening on January 12, I received a second short message from Maxim. The Ukrainian word for what I assume means to convey “warm greetings” is always translated by my internet translator into English as “Congratulations”. That is nice and interesting.

Sun, Jan 12 at 10:39 PM нд, 12 січ о 22:39

Chris, thank you so much for sharing the news regarding the fire with us! May God bless your family! Congratulations to your wife!

And then even later that evening, right after midnight my time on January 13, I received a message from Igor, which in part is below.

Mon, Jan 13 at 12:06 AM

Thank you so much for letting me know that you are okay amidst the fires raging around you. Praise the Lord for His protection and salvation!

We are praying for your city these days, that the Lord will protect it from this fiery element. …

You know, when I look at the photos of the burned houses in your city, it reminded me (visually) of those places and cities in Ukraine that were destroyed after enemy shelling.

We are praying for you!

Your brother in Christ, Igor

PostscriptПостскриптум

All of the email messages and thoughts of this posting are related and connected by the wildfires blazing in Los Angeles, and the fiery havoc rained upon Ukraine by the Russian aggression and war – loss of homes and communities and deaths caused by these two very different fires and destruction – now the background of everything in this blog that I think, and feel, and write about, comprising the very air of which I breathe, at times smelling of smoke.  And yet within all this destruction and ruin, there is a shared memory of a time in the past when the warmth of a fire in our fireplace was one of comfort and hope, which still also deeply joins us to all our Ukrainian friends. This blog connects the dots between them all.

As my wife and I have discussed – and as I have texted, emailed, and spoken to other family members and friends about what the fires here in Los Angeles really mean – the informal consensus is that it is not so much about the loss of buildings as it is about the total destruction of homes and neighborhoods – for seniors and grandparents, parents and children, friends and relatives, and strangers who are yet my neighbors by the command of God – this being the deepest level at which I understand the fires raging through my city.

For it would be a catastrophic and almost unbearable loss to me if my home burned to the ground and was reduced to ashes, for, yes, it would greatly impact multiple areas of my identity and life and would surely be overwhelming. And with this, I at least partially know and understand how overwhelming it is for those families, young children, and all others who have lost homes – to suddenly have absolutely nothing.  

And this is also how I understand the war’s destruction in Ukraine – persons, families, children – all losing everything suddenly, violently, and many times without any warning or time to escape the missiles or drones, coupled also with one other very significant difference from here – Ukraine enduring many times more death than in Los Angeles, including the multiple deaths, multiple murders, of multiple children.

And through all this, I am reminded of how in the narratives of some holocaust survivors, the plight and misery of the children brutally rounded up, and shipped off to the death camps, was many times voiced by their desperately tired bodies, crying eyes, and thirsty lips, calling out to their parents, or grandparents, or older brothers or sisters, a repeated desire just to go back home – a place of comfort and care, a safe haven wrapped up in the love and arms of their parents and others – their desperately longed-for wish, and hope, and cry for home, extinguished not tremendously long after they arrived, when they themselves by fire were reduced to just small now silent piles of ash.

And when I now look again to the photo of our living room used in the December 19 posting in the light of the fires in Los Angeles, the sharp and despairing shock of losing everything that must have come upon those learning or seeing that their homes, their neighborhoods, had burned to the ground, comes rushing upon me.

For I’ve been comfortable and content living here in my home for almost 40 years now – and I’ve always liked our living room which we have always tried to make warm and inviting for others.  And in the winter, when it is cold, when guests walk into our home, straight ahead of them and the first thing they see, is a nice bright, crackling fire in the large fireplace. That fire, welcoming, and promising warmth and comfort.

And when I looked upon this photo with the mental image and emotional experience in my mind of my home burning down, I suddenly realized how just in the living room how much we would really lose.  In the middle of the room on the hardwood floor – an original feature of the house built in the 1950s, much admired and appreciated for the for the wonderful warmth and life created by all the different patterns of the grain of the wood of the individual slats – there is a rug, a Persian rug, a small piece from a much larger rug from my wife’s grandparent’s house, which now needs repairs as the fringe has tattered, from years of activity of our children and grandchildren and cats.  All this would burn up and be gone.

On the mantel of the fireplace, a carved ostrich egg sits, a gift from my youngest daughter when she was working as a volunteer at an orphanage for HIV and AIDS children in South Africa when in college. Also on the mantel piece is a set of Russian nesting dolls, a gift from friends, a favorite item of my wife and young grandchildren. Sitting on the hearth are the copper antiques we acquired from my wife’s parents – the flames from a fire in the fireplace always reflecting beautifully upon the copper.  Some of the cushions on the couches are gifts from India and Istanbul given to us by family and friends. The other pillows my wife made over the years – the red Christmas Bear one, not actually a pillow, but a quillow which opens as blanket now for young grandchildren on cool Christmas time evenings.  All of these things would be melted or reduced to ashes.

So, this is just not a room in a house, but a room which is an integral living part of a home, created by all the events and all the treasured objects within it with unlimited meaning, all acquired over the lifetimes of multiple generations of family.

And these and similar things, treasured objects with multiple meanings and significance for multiple generations, is what was lost in the fires of Los Angeles, and in the destruction of homes in the war upon Ukraine. And we mustn’t forget either place of destruction, for we must always understand that in the ashes in Los Angeles or the ashes spread out over the land of Ukraine, we are dealing with homes, the external habitation, yes, but also much more, the expression of the internal lives of other persons within the rooms – of families, of children, of our neighbors.

And as I close this blog, as I finish this posting, the fires are literally still burning in Los Angeles, with the much-needed rain to quench the tinder dry landscape of the city nowhere in sight. And in Ukraine? The nation and the people are still under the fire and destruction of the Russian missiles and drones raining down upon them, with a just cessation of the war and an end of the murderous hatred towards them, also nowhere in sight, for within the hearts and minds of the Russian president, and his domestic and international friends, supporters, and rich profiteers and well-wishers, only evil reigns within them all, like a dark, twisting, poisonous snake.

***

1 Comment

  1. Another poignant, well written piece, added to all of those that I have come to look forward to.

    Reply

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