Benefield: Let’s pause and honor those we have lost

For many of us, it is difficult to look back.

It’s difficult, traumatic even, to remember what that first terrifying night was like five years ago today when the wind howled and whipped flames and embers at terrifying speeds over the hill, through neighborhoods and across town.

The Tubbs Fire. The Nuns Fire. The Atlas Fire. The Pocket Fire.

And it’s difficult to remember the nights and days that followed, when fires still burned, when smoke filled the air, and fear — and disbelief — permeated every waking moment.

A time when 5,300 homes were razed in Sonoma County alone and people woke up to an entirely new reality.

It’s hard to go back.

But anniversaries, even the grim ones, are not just about remembering, but honoring — honoring the heroism that so many people, professionals and ordinary citizens, showed us that night.

The bus drivers who ferried people to safety in the middle of the night amid darkness and flames.

The sheriff’s deputies and police officers who pounded on door after door urging people to flee.

The fire crews who were faced with, and fought, an inferno heretofore unimaginable.

The 911 dispatchers who took call after call from terrified people trying to escape flames and tried to guide them to a safety they were not sure existed.

And anniversaries are about honoring those who died.

Twenty-four people died in Sonoma County in the fires that erupted that October night five years ago. Sixteen more were killed in Napa and Mendocino counties.

They were sisters, parents, children, grandparents.

They were 14 years old. They were 101.

They were an engineer who loved travel and photography, a wildlife biologist who was key to the survival of peregrine falcons in Northern California and a retired certified nursing assistant who regularly bought one-pound boxes of See’s candy for strangers.

They were a former roofer who taught her niece how to change the oil in her car and wield a hammer properly, a quilter who loved H.P. Lovecraft novels and a retired professional flutist who loved quilting but loved her dogs more.

They were a firefighter — the only one who died fighting the fires — and they were couples, many of whom lived together and died together, after being overcome by flames.

Our individual and collective grief pales in comparison to the tragedy of losing a loved one.

And in a disaster like the one that unfolded here five years ago, the death toll was unclear for so long.

Amid the chaos, family members frantically tried to find loved ones. If they had phone service, they called. They posted photos and addresses on social media.

They went to evacuation sites.

Forty times it ended the same. With a private confirmation, with a public comment thanking people for their support, and an announcement: “Our hearts are broken.”

We all lost something five years ago. Whether it was our home, or our sense of safety and security, or a loved one.

Things changed forever.

We don’t need to look at the burn scars on the hillside to know it. We don’t need the wind to blow feel it.

Still, we are buoyed by sights and scenes of recovery. The number of homes rebuilt, in the businesses reopened and the community restored.

We can and should celebrate our resilience, our strength.

But we should also remember those who died and those families and loved ones who cannot track recovery in stages of construction or rebuilding.

Some losses can’t be put back together again.

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.

Coming Sunday: The Fire Victim Trust was supposed to compensate those who’d lost their lives, homes and other property to wildfires caused by Pacific Gas and Electric company, but the process has been agonizingly slow for the victims.

Coming Monday: The state board that regulates contractors is understaffed and overwhelmed, making it difficult to protect wildfire victims from unscrupulous builders.