Sonoma Academy grad's tribute to burned Santa Rosa home featured in New York Times column

Siena Canales remembered her home, destroyed in the Tubbs fire, in a recent 'Modern Love' column.|
CHRIS SMITH
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The New York Times just published a 98-word love story from Siena Canales, who grew up in Santa Rosa, studied at Sonoma Academy and today is a Harvard grad living, acting, modeling, writing and tutoring in New York City.

Siena's “Modern Love” tribute in the Times recalls the destruction by fire of the Santa Rosa home she'd shared with her parents, Paco Canales and Heather Furnas, and her older brother, Diego.

She wrote:

My whole hand used to fit in my mother's palm. When I was sad and scared, she would squeeze me tight and say it's all going to be all right. Now I'm 24. My parents lost everything in Northern California's Tubbs Fire in October 2017. Both surgeons, they are strong and brave, but sometimes wake up at night in their temporary home with nightmares of the recent deadly fires. I can't bring back their treasures or take away their stress, but I can tell them I love them and hold my mother's hand like she once held mine.

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