Altadena, California — Missy Dodd-Figueroa has brought life to the fire-ravaged plot of land where her home once stood — one sunflower at a time.
A registered nurse and mother of three lost her 1898 ranch-style home in the Eaton Fire, Sunday Two deadly wildfires That tore through the Los Angeles area last January, destroying entire neighborhoods and displacing tens of thousands of people.
A year later, many are still grappling with grief and grief. Few have been able to rebuild so far, and the rest are struggling There is no shortage of challenges.
“The Altadena I know and love is gone,” Dodd Figueroa said, referring to the suburb destroyed by the fire. “Everything has burned down – the dentist, the pharmacy – everything is gone. But there is still something in Altadena that looks like Altadena now, even though there are no houses.”
She is among those who decided to stay. Her healing process began with small seeds that gave her hope and eventually transformed her barren property into a thriving garden.
Dodd Figueroa and her family have lived in the four-bedroom, three-bathroom home for 10 years. It was the longest she had ever lived in one place, and the feeling of loss left her struck by waves of grief.
For months, she would drive to the empty lot and cry. Her grief and shock deepened when she realized that in addition to her late grandmother’s artwork that was in her home, her father’s ashes were gone forever.
“I spent several days digging through the ashes looking for his little urn, but I never found it,” said Dude Figueroa, 44.
All family photos except those saved on her iPad were also gone.
“That was like a second heartbreak, too. I thought to myself: ‘Okay, great.'” “Now, if my father knew, he would be very disappointed because he was a family type of person,” she said. “I don’t have anything from my father. “You know, I’ll never touch anything he touched again.”
Then one day, after cleanup crews had cleared the last of the debris from the 2,000-square-foot plot, they brought with them some flower seeds. It was mostly sunflowers, but also included zinnias and cosmos, among others, and planted them in the soil.
“I would go there every day and cry, so I was like, ‘Why am I sitting here?’” “Maybe I’ll do something that keeps me busy, that I enjoy, because in the house I’m in now, I can’t have a garden,” she added.
Sunflowers can absorb cadmium and other heavy metals that can be left in the soil, although experts debate how effective they are after wildfires. Dodd Figueroa hoped they would help her detoxify her possessions by simply uprooting them and throwing them away after she died, taking care not to leave seeds behind.
For months, as Dodd-Figueroa and her husband took steps toward eventually building a new home, the garden blossomed, covering much of the plot with a colorful display of about 500 flowers — bright orange and red flowers, as well as yellow flowers with giant heads.
“It’s been really healing to come back and take care of the place I’ve lived in for the longest time in my life,” she said.
Butterflies began to appear along with a variety of insects and small animals.
“I felt like I was helping nature come back a little bit,” she said.
Construction on Dowd-Figueroa’s new home began in late September, thanks in part to about $100,000 in donations through a fundraising site. By then, sunflowers, most of which bloom once and then die, were almost gone.
that’s ok. With construction ongoing and expected to be completed in mid-June, the slowly taking shape of her new home is now lifting Dodd-Figueroa’s spirits.
“Before that, I was very depressed, like I cried every day,” she said. “It’s like there’s a place out there now. It’s going to happen. We can do it.”
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Associated Press reporter Durani Pineda contributed from Los Angeles.